Q&A with Matthew Quick, author of 'Love May Fail'

Matthew Quick is more than just his most famous work, “The Silver Linings Playbook.” A former teacher, a fan of ’80s hair metal and a new resident of North Carolina, Quick spoke to Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Vassello about his newest novel, “Love May Fail,” released June 16. Quick will be at Flyleaf Books on Friday.

Daily Tar Heel: What was your inspiration for “Love May Fail?”

Matthew Quick: Since I left teaching in 2004, I always wanted to write a story about a teacher and a student reuniting years after they left the classroom. I knew I wanted it to be a platonic relationship, not a romantic relationship, but I never really knew what the story was going to be about.

I left my job as a high school English teacher, and I was pretty burned out and disgruntled, and kind of my faith in humanity had been kicked around — I loved working with young people, but the politics and the nature of schools in general, I found it very frustrating.

When I left, I didn’t want to think about teaching ever again, but when I left, some of my former students would contact me over and over again, especially when I started to publish. They would show up to all of my events.

It was really touching to me, and it gave me a lot of fuel, that these former teenagers would remember me 10, 15 years later and come back.

It’s a tricky dance because when you’re in a classroom, the relationships are clearly defined, but when you leave the classroom, it can be kind of hard to reconnect. I thought there was a lot of rich material there.

DTH: I’m reading it right now, and for me, it’s kind of like a normal person’s take on sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Was that intentional?

MQ: I didn’t try to write a sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll book — it definitely is all there, I absolutely admit that. For me, the core of the book is more about simple relationships, and I think when you say sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, it sounds like a rock ’n’ roll book, and that’s not really what this book is. It’s all there.

I think, especially for someone around my age, and I grew up in the ’80s, rock ’n’ roll was fed to us in a new way. In the ’70s, you couldn’t just turn on the TV and have glam metal in your face every day, and that’s kind of what we grew up on. In some ways, I look back and see just how ridiculous those bands were, in like the teased up hair, and that kind of lifestyle was just so crazy, and yet at 12 years of age, we would watch Motley Crue or Guns N’ Roses on TV in our boring, suburban lives, and it just seemed so normal.

I think for these characters, these pop culture references just touch them — they’re things they know; it’s what they grew up with; it’s what they’re nostalgic for; and in some ways, it’s what connects them.

I know when I met my wife she was 17, I was 19, so we’ve been together a long time, but when we were kids, we grew up on the same music. She was in Massachusetts listening to Motley Crue, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, and I was in New Jersey doing the same thing. When we got together, our musical tastes had become a little more eclectic, but those were kind of common touchstones that united us, and I think that’s what the book is really about.

DTH: A lot of your books deal with really heavy topics. How do you balance the heaviness with humor or joy?

MQ: I think that’s a necessity.

I’ll tell a story — my dad is a banker, and he may be mad at me for saying this, but he’s been stressed out his entire life. He’s just one of these guys who works super hard. I remember when I was a kid, we would go to the movies, and my dad never wanted to see a sad movie or a foreign film. It would always be some sort of action movie or comedy. I remember he would laugh, like a lot, in the theater, and that was good to see because I didn’t see my dad laugh a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t see him smile a lot when I was a kid, and that made an impression on me growing up.

I did the MFA. I love literature with a capital L; I love literary fiction, but I made a choice pretty early on that I wanted to write stories that would resonate with people. I wanted to put an optimistic spin on them, and I think the reason I do that is because — I’m very open now; I wasn’t 10 years ago — I do struggle with depression, and I do have anxiety issues. And story for me is where I go to find release.

Going to movies or reading a good novel — that’s like my religion. I think if you’re somebody who deals with depression or anxiety or mental health issues, you learn very quickly how powerful humor is. You’ve got to find levity — it’s like a drug; it helps.

For my stories, I try to tell the truth, right? I try to present my characters as fully developed human beings who have problems and who aren’t living these rosy, fairytale lives — they’re very broken, damaged people. But I also think they’re people who want to do the work, and they’re people who’re looking to get through life, and part of that is laughing at the absurdity that we all face.

I think it’s an absurd proposition to be a human being — it makes no sense in a lot of ways, and if you don’t laugh, you can get into some psychological trouble pretty quickly. It’s about opposites. If you’re going to have people that have a lot of pain, you’ve got to balance that out because life isn’t always pain — it’s both.

DTH: What’s it like to have been publishing for years and then to have your first novel, “The Silver Linings Playbook,” explode onto the mainstream?

MQ: To be honest with you, I went through severe anxiety attacks before the book came out because when you’re writing an obscurity, you never really think anyone’s ever going to read what you’re writing, and you kind of just tell the truth, and once you put it out there it becomes very public, and a lot of people can see right into you, for lack of better expression. When the movie came out, it was just like putting all of that on steroids: it was so intense and so surreal.

I’m a guy that likes to be alone a lot. I’m kind of an introvert — I can be a fake extrovert when I have to so I can get up on the stage or do a TV interview, but my natural habitat is alone in my office. Being forced to be an extrovert for a long period of time, it can be tough for me.

As grateful for everything that came, and it is amazing — the fact that I get to live my life as a full-time fiction writer is beautiful; it’s not lost on me — the thing I tell young writers is when you say you want to be a full-time fiction writer, before you are a full-time fiction writer, you have no idea what that means.

It was fun, and it was heady, and it was surreal and all of those things, but I always look forward to going back to the page, which is where I feel most comfortable.

arts@dailytarheel.com