Member of the Mental Health Community, Author Matthew Quick

Posted by: Allison Helps Cats on: May 30, 2013

• In: Current (After 1999) | Grades 6-8 | Grades 9-11 | Realistic | Teasers
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And I think people who consider themselves part of the mental health community, and I consider myself a member, we understand it’s important to understand these things so we can talk about them. But you are not your diagnosis. You are much more than that. You are a human being.

All the work I’ve published and all the work I’m contracted to publish is about mental health in one way or another. And that’s not accidental. My first job out of college was working with teens diagnosed with severe autism and what I found was that people who are in these communities are the most open-minded, kind accepting people. So I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to be part of the mental health community. But there is still that stigma out there, unfortunately. And there are still people who can’t handle talking about this, let alone associating themselves with the words mental health.

Matthew Quick, Word and Film

Matthew Quick is an author whose work first attracted me because of the movie The Silver Linings Playbook. Upon reading his biographical information, I also became interested in Quick’s background and his subsequent young adult books. For that reason, I felt excited to set aside time this week to read two of his young adult novels: Sort of Like a Rock Star and Boy 21. I’ll review the latter on Saturday. Save the date: June 1!

CHILDHOOD

Matthew Quick was born in north Philadelphia, but he mostly grew up across the river in a small South Jersey town. He told Sixers Review, the neighborhood was a typical American, lower-middle-class, neighborhood. Moreover, The Silver Linings Playbook is set in and around his hometown and the characters are reminiscent of the people with whom Quick grew up. For example, growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood, Quick encountered many ideals that the rest of the world may have found outdated, and his protagonist, Pat Peoples, struggles with this too.

From a young age Quick knew that he was a writer. He shares with Sixers Review that, as a teenager, he filled notebooks with poetry and stories. However, because Quick come from a family of pragmatic bankers, and so being creative wasn’t encouraged, he grew up feeling like a closet writer.

ADULTHOOD

167 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After college, Quick became a high school teacher because he needed a steady income. For seven years, Quick taught at a prestigious high school. He told Sixers Review that he views himself as a good high school English teacher and counselor of teenagers, but admits that inside he felt depressed because he wasn’t doing the one thing he wanted to do: write. Quick also felt like a hypocrite, because he was counseling his students to pursue the arts but wasn’t actually pursuing the field himself.

By his late twenties, Quick reached the point where he felt as though he couldn’t handle pretending anymore and was therefore betraying himself. After quitting his tenured teaching job, Quick and his wife sold their house and moved into his in-laws’ basement. There, Quick started writing seriously and trying to make a career out of his passion. “The truth was that if I didn’t do it,” Quick revealed to Word and Film, “I wasn’t going to make it. I don’t say that lightly. I felt I didn’t have a choice. I was so miserable internally and I was so desperate to have the courage to have this conversation and to create art, I don’t think I would be in a good place right now if I didn’t do it.”

WRITING LIFE

Quick decided to fictionalize an old essay he’d written about his father’s obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Silver Linings Playbook was published in September 2008. There was talk about a film version and then it happened. Apparently, Silver Linings Playbook is only the ninth film in Oscar history to receive nominations in all four acting categories. Quick is quoted at the LaSalle University as saying, “To see this go from my in-laws’ basement, when everybody thought I was just some insane person throwing away a good position to eight Oscar nominations is mind-blowing,” Quick told the Philadelphia Inquirer: “It also is a win for Philly. I really believe that. I wrote this book because I missed Philadelphia, I love Philadelphia.”

BOOKS

Why did Matthew Quick switch to writing novels for young adults? The answer is surprising but simple. According to The Divining Wand, having already had written a second adult manuscript before The Silver Linings Playbook was published, Quick discovered that his adult-market editor was swamped and unable to work on the new book. Quick’s agent suggested that, rather than waste time in waiting, Quick return to his high school English teaching experiences and reach out to teenagers by writing about them. Quick realized, “I can do that.” And so Sort of Like a Rock Star came about.

I can see my breath.

Ice sheets form on the windows.

My teeth chatter.

Sometimes I wake up because my lungs hurt so bad from taking in so much freezing air; it’s like gargling chips of dry ice.

My water bottle freezes if I take it out of my inner coat pocket.

Forget about peeing, unless you want to shiver your butt off.

And it’s pretty lonely too.

Amber Appleton lives in a bus. Ever since her mom’s boyfriend kicked them out, Amber, her mom, and her totally loyal dog, Bobby Big Boy (aka Thrice B) have been camped out in the back of Hello Yellow (the school bus her mom drives). Still, Amber, the self-proclaimed princess of hope and girl of unyielding optimism, refuses to sweat the bad stuff. But when a fatal tragedy threatens Amber’s optimism–and her way of life, can Amber continue to be the rock star of hope?

Read more about the publication of Sort of Like a Rock Star at:
The Divining Wand

As for Boy 21, while teaching high school Quick observed that “because we live in a culture that doesn’t often encourage boys to speak about their emotions, I think many boys struggle to express their feelings for each other during the teens years.” He points out to Forever Rewrighting that, “Ironically, it’s the intense male friendships boys cultivate during the teen years that shape much of their identity.” BOY21 explores this issue.

Sometimes I pretend that shooting hoops in my backyard is my earliest memory. I’m just a kid, so Dad gives me one of those smaller basketballs and lowers the adjustable rim. He tells me to shoot until I can make one hundred basketballs in a row, which seems impossible. Then he goes back inside the house to deal with my pop, who has recently returned legless from the hospital…. Our house has been silent for a long time and I understand that my mother is not coming back.

Basketball has always been an escape for Finley. He lives in broken-down Bellmont, a town ruled by the Irish mob, drugs, violence, and racially charged rivalries. At home, his dad works nights, and Finley is left to take care of his disabled grandfather alone. He’s always dreamed of getting out someday, but until he can, putting on that number 21 jersey makes everything seem okay.

Russ has just moved to the neighborhood, and the life of this teen basketball phenom has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he won’t pick up a basketball, but answers only to the name Boy21–taken from his former jersey number.

As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, a unique friendship may turn out to be the answer they both need.

Read more about the publication of Boy 21 at:
Forever Rewrighting

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• Review of Boy 21

Tags: Allison's Book Bag, Boy 21, Matthew Quick, reviews of books for young people, Silver Linings Playbook, Sort of Like a Rock Star