Author: Matthew Quick in Conversation with Amy Jo Burns

The author discusses his new memoir "Dad, Love Me" with Amy Jo Burns followed by a book signing.

About the Book (from the publisher): 

Written in the form of a letter to his ailing father, this debut memoir from the bestselling author of "The Silver Linings Playbook" explores the complicated burden of caring for an abusive parent who is dying—here is Matthew Quick’s most personal and potent work to date.

On the surface, Matthew Quick seemed to have it all—a loving wife, a thriving career as a novelist, and a beautiful home. He’d traveled all over the world advocating for mental health awareness, standing before crowds as a success story. But secretly, he was depressed and some days, he didn’t want to live.

Years earlier, when he first told his father he wanted to be a novelist, the response was immediate and brutal: “Idiot!” That voice—angry and belittling—would echo through Quick’s mind for years. He channeled his pain into his debut novel, "The Silver Linings Playbook," crafting a complex father-son dynamic drawn straight from his own life. The book became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Still, the approval Quick longed for never came. His father remained cold and withholding. The deeper the rift between them grew, the deeper Quick sank into anxiety and addiction.

In this book, Quick takes readers deep into his psyche, as he wrestles with both his own mental health and his father’s cognitive decline. A health scare finally forces Quick to get sober, but then, overcome by creative paralysis, writer’s block threatens to end his career. The blank page is unbearable. As his desperation for healing peaks, Quick turns to a Jungian analyst he nicknames “Zeus.” In the safety of analysis, as Quick’s repressed pain and shame surface, he finally cracks. Just as he is putting himself back together, his father is diagnosed with dementia.

Suddenly, the clock is ticking. If there is ever going to be reconciliation, it has to happen now. Quick and his wife pack up their lives in coastal North Carolina, drive eight hours, and move into a house just around the corner from Quick’s parents, on an island right outside of Beaufort, South Carolina. There, as his father slips further and further away, Quick races to make a healing connection.

"Dad, Love, Me" is Quick’s raw, vulnerable, and deeply moving account of what it means to forgive a parent who never really knew how to love you. It’s about wounds that never fully heal, and the power of showing up anyway. This beautifully brave and life-affirming memoir is a must read for anyone who has been starved of love but wants to keep loving anyway.

About the Author:

Matthew Quick is theNew York Timesbestselling author of "The Silver Linings Playbook"—which was made into an Oscar-winning film—and eight other novels, including "We Are the Light," a main selection of the Book of the Month Club. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a #1 bestseller in Brazil, a Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis 2016 (German Youth Literature Prize) nominee, and selected by Nancy Pearl as one of Summer’s Best Books for NPR. The Hollywood Reporter has named him one of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. Matthew lives with his wife, the novelist Alicia Bessette, in Beaufort, South Carolina.

About the Moderator: 

Amy Jo Burns is a frequent presence at Princeton Public Library literary events. Her new novel, "Wait for Me," is the Today Show Read With Jenna pick for March 2026. She is the author of three other books, including "Cinderland," "Shiner," and "Mercury," which was a Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and an Editor’s Choice selection in The New York Times. A western Pennsylvania native, she lives in New Jersey with her family.

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