The Reason You're Alive

May 29, 2017
Meet David Granger, the bigoted 68-year-old Vietnam veteran and narrator of Quick’s (The Silver Linings Playbook) dark, funny, and surprisingly tender new novel. After a brain tumor is removed, Granger allows some unknown government lackey to transcribe his life story: a patriotic, often cynical, sometimes paranoid, but always engaging recitation. He shares the horrors of Vietnam and his encounter with Clayton Fire Bear, the fake name of a Native American to whom he owes an apology. He describes his family relationships: his love for his granddaughter; his semi-estrangement with Hank, his pretentious son; and his tragic marriage to Hank’s mother, Jessica, which began as an effort to save her life after being raped and impregnated and ended years later with her suicide. Granger’s life is rife with instances that either prove or belie his reputation as a xenophobic, racist homophobe. Identifying the “you” in the title proves illuminating; is it Clayton Fire Bear, Hank—who until now was ignorant about his paternity—or Granger himself, who tried and failed to keep Jessica’s demons at bay and too late realized she returned the favor with more subtlety and success?

May 1, 2017
A veteran tries to come to terms with the traumatic experiences he had a generation earlier in Vietnam.At the core of the novel is the voice of David Granger, a combination of Archie Bunker and Marlow of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. When the novel opens, Granger is 68, and he's still haunted by his experiences in Vietnam. There, he'd witnessed darkness and violence on an unimaginable scale and was complicit in that violence. His postwar life included "some crazy time in a military loony bin in Kansas," and every day he still dresses top to toe in camouflage and carries a sidearm in an ankle holster. His wife now dead, Granger contemptuously patronizes his son, Hank, an art dealer. (His wife, an artist, had named their son Henri Rousseau Granger, but David can't stomach the effete name.) David is casual and defensive about his prejudices, and he both recognizes and denies these prejudices in equal measure. But the narrator is not wholly unsympathetic--he had obviously deeply loved his wife, and he dotes on his 7-year-old granddaughter, Ella. After a terrible car crash that leads to the discovery of a brain tumor David attributes to his long-ago exposure to Agent Orange, he decides to "right a wrong" he committed during the war. He stole a knife from Clayton Fire Bear, a Native American who collected scalps as part of his own traumatic war experience. With the help of a buddy of his from his Vietnam days, Granger goes on a quest to find the elusive Fire Bear. The final reunion with Fire Bear, now a lawyer, is far more surprising than what Granger had expected or imagined. A valuable addition to fiction about the tangled aftereffects of Vietnam on soldiers in the field.

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Starred review from May 1, 2017
You wouldn't think an ankle-holstering, Marlboro-smoking, card-carrying Republican could be vulnerable, but you don't know David Granger. A Vietnam veteran convinced that his brain tumor was caused by Agent Orange, David agrees to present his life's story in order to hold Uncle Sam accountable for his war injuries and to guide fellow veterans. David's brain injuries make him the definition of an unreliable narrator, and he often interrupts his own story with asides, foreshadowing, and deflection. His quest to return a war souvenir to its rightful owner is quixotic in the truest sense of the word, as his plans become derailed and reformed with each new twist. David's anxiety and braggadocio continually crash into each other to form one of the most frustrating, yet appealing, narrators in recent memory, contradictory to his core. Those familiar with author Quick will recognize elements of the complex and unflinchingly honest protagonist that appeared in The Silver Linings Playbook (2008), and fans of Matthew Norman and Greg Olear will enjoy David's introspection and self-preservation. Quick's prose is sharp and cutting, perfectly suited to David's brash persona. The Reason You're Alive is a compact powerhouse of a novel. Though brief, it's subversive, unexpected, and utterly compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2017

Medical tests after a BMW crash reveal that die-hard patriot and Vietnam veteran David Granger has a brain tumor he believes was caused by Agent Orange. After surgery, he determines that he must make amends to a Native American soldier he wronged during the war, a move that might help his relationships with his estranged art dealer son and loyal Vietnamese American friend Sue. Acknowledging the American rift and trying to heal it; from the New York Times best-selling author who brought us The Silver Linings Playbook.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 15, 2017

Vietnam War veteran David Granger is taken to the hospital after he wraps his BMW around a tree. Medical tests reveal David had a brain tumor that he blames on the U.S. government for exposing him to Agent Orange during the war. As he recovers from brain surgery, he repeats the name of a Native American soldier he served with, Clayton Fire Bear, whom David had disciplined harshly. After being discharged from the hospital, David is helped by best friend Sue, a Vietnamese America woman, to reconnect with his distant son, Hank, and his seven-year-old granddaughter, Ella. As he finds peace with his family--even moving in with them--the aging vet also seeks to make amends with Clayton Fire Bear by returning a stolen ceremonial knife that he had given to his now-deceased wife. VERDICT Quick (Boy 21; Silver Linings Playbook) delivers an exceptional novel; its themes of war and memory as well as its unforgettable characters, especially the ornery David, fast pace, and insightful dialog will connect with readers of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17; library marketing.]--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2017

Vietnam War veteran David Granger is taken to the hospital after he wraps his BMW around a tree. Medical tests reveal David had a brain tumor that he blames on the U.S. government for exposing him to Agent Orange during the war. As he recovers from brain surgery, he repeats the name of a Native American soldier he served with, Clayton Fire Bear, whom David had disciplined harshly. After being discharged from the hospital, David is helped by best friend Sue, a Vietnamese America woman, to reconnect with his distant son, Hank, and his seven-year-old granddaughter, Ella. As he finds peace with his family--even moving in with them--the aging vet also seeks to make amends with Clayton Fire Bear by returning a stolen ceremonial knife that he had given to his now-deceased wife. VERDICT Quick (Boy 21; Silver Linings Playbook) delivers an exceptional novel; its themes of war and memory as well as its unforgettable characters, especially the ornery David, fast pace, and insightful dialog will connect with readers of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17; library marketing.]--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.