Quirky and uplifting

THE SILVER LININGS PLAY BOOK
By Matthew Quick
MacMillan, $34.99

Pat Peoples is definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. He believes his life is a movie produced by God and is waiting for the happy ending when his estranged wife Nikki will come back to him.

In the meantime he's devoting himself to getting ready for her by working out obsessively all day long and reading his way through Nikki's favourite American classics. However, there are many things Pat's confused about.

Why do his parents refuse to display his wedding photographs, why does the music of saxophonist Kenny G send him over the edge and why, until recently, has he been locked up in a mental health facility?

When Pat meets fellow fitness addict Tiffany she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife if he'll perform with her in the annual Dance Away Depression competition. But to do so Pat has to give up watching gridiron, his only link with his family, friends and the world.

A quick precis of the plot doesn't really do much justice to this debut novel from US writer Matthew Quick. Yes it's quirky, odd even, but it's also that rare thing, an uplifting and heart-warming story that absolutely never strays into the cheesy zone. The Silver Linings Play Book is neither formulaic nor is it glib.

Author Matthew Quick worked for a time in a neural health facility and the experience has clearly helped him manage a tricky balancing act, mining a mentally ill character for comedy yet never robbing him of his dignity. The story is told through Pat and his voice is candid but befuddled.

Try as he might he just does not get what's going on and yet often his skewed perspective on life brings with it an offbeat wisdom.

Although it's highly original, this book has the same feel as Ron McLarty's The Memory Of Running as well as a similar theme: one man's bid to come to terms with his past.

There's more American football than I would normally ask for in a novel but that's one of the things that's likely to make the story as accessible to men as it is women. And it's no surprise that the movie rights have been sold - one particularly funny section of the story is even written like a movie montage.

Don't wait for this to come out on the big screen though. Enjoy it now.