(bell rings) - I'm Matthew Quick, and this is "We Are the Light."

"We Are the Light" is about Lucas Goodgame is my protagonist and he is this man who is a counselor at a high school in the town of Majestic, PA. And he goes to the movies with his wife one night and there's this horrific tragedy in the movie theater.

And when he comes out two things happen, the town declares him a hero which is very hard for him, and he has to deal with the loss of his wife.

The first thing he reaches for after the tragedy is his Jungian analyst who he's been seeing.

And that's when he finds out his Jungian analyst is no longer seeing any patients anymore because he had been affected by the tragedy too.

And so he is completely lost.

And so he starts writing these letters to his analyst in an effort to kind of woo the analyst back and start the analytical relationship again.

And so through these letters we see how Lucas's psyche keeps his mind together throughout this.

And so it's a story about narrative and as medicine, and it's also a story about how we take care of each other.

And so one of the things that happens shortly after this is one of Lucas's ex students that he was counseling, Eli, shows up and sets up a tent in his backyard and kind of forces this relationship.

And they decide that they're going to create this art project that they imagine will save themselves and the entire community.

And so it's this really beautiful story about how we save ourselves by saving others.

(slow music) - So if you're at a dinner party and someone asked you to explain Jungian analysis, what do you say?

- I would say it is not a quick fix.

It's not something that concerns itself so much with symptoms but the actual deep wounds.

And so it is a deep journey over many years to figure out who you are, and more importantly, who you were always meant to be before you picked up all of the schooling and the parental stuff.

What is trying to come through you into the world at this time?

What is your purpose?

Who are you trying to be?

And the young call that individuation to achieve that.

And it's almost like enlightenment.

So it's not something that everybody gets but it's more a goal that you aspire to.

I had always been a big movie goer, Alicia, my wife and I, ever since we were teenagers we regularly go to the theater.

And we used to say how going to the movies is like church for us.

You go into a dark room, you get quiet and you see these kind of mythical big images on the screen and I'd study the human condition.

And so when I heard about this shooting in Aurora, Colorado it really affected me.

All shootings do and I was a teacher and so Columbine was particularly horrific.

But there's something about this one that I would go to the theater and I would look around and where are the exits and who is behind me.

Whereas, after Columbine I would go to the school and it's just regular business.

So I don't know why I was so affected by it.

And in 2014 I did a one book one town in the Ambler, PA the town of Ambler, PA and it happened to be held at this cathedral-like movie theater which is actually the one on the cover.

I did that event and I was up on stage where the movie screen would be.

And it was part of me talking to the community, having this great time and interacting.

It was a lovely evening.

And there was another part of me that was saying, am I safe up here?

Who is in the audience?

And so that kind of dual thing.

And I remember coming out and looking at this lit up theater with the marquee and there's like spirals and it's just a beautiful theater and I thought, I've gotta write about this experience and I've gotta write about a theater like this.

And so I tried to write the book for several years and failed and I could not do it.

And then when I got blocked after I got sober in 2018, I went through this really low period where I actually entered into Jungian analysis.

And then one of the first things that happened when I entered into analysis is I bonded tremendously with my analyst, and I got really paranoid that he was gonna abandon me or that something bad would happen to him.

It was this really wonderful healing relationship so the dark part of me said, this can't be real, this is gonna be taken away from you.

And so whenever I have these paranoias or these mental health problems, I always take them into what I call the creative writing wrestling ring.

I try to wrestle them down on the page.

And so, when I started to think about, well, what if I put a Jungian lens on my movie theater story?

And what if I tried to marry these two things?

And what if I started out the book on page one where this guy has this horrific experience in the movie house and then his Jungian analyst abandons him right away, that's the inciting incident.

That kind of broke the writer's block and I was off then.

(slow music) - Lucas doesn't like to see himself as a hero.

Do you think he's a hero or do you think he's an anti-hero?

- I think he's a reluctant hero.

- Reluctant, yeah.

- I think what he does in the book both without spoilers, both why the town thinks he's a hero and what he does for Eli is very heroic.

At his worst he offers the world his best.

And there's a huge cost for that.

And so for me I think Lucas is a hero in my world.

- I love that, in his moment, his worst moment he gives his best.

That is exactly what this book is about.

Is that a message that you want to bring to people?

- I think it's something I wanna offer people.

And I never wanna be didactic in what I write, but I saw that when I was at my worst right after sobriety my depression and anxiety was at my worst.

When I turned my face away from people I got sicker.

And when I kind of rallied and found ways to offer small but the best I had at the time to people, they really offered a lot back to me.

And my analyst often says that the face we turn to unconscious is what unconscious turns to us.

So if you walk around angry all the time you're gonna see anger everywhere.

If you like walk around seeing love everywhere that's gonna be returned to you, that's what is gonna be reflected to you.

And so, I think that it's just something that I've learned is just true.

When I was cranky and recently sober and at my worst, that's what I saw everywhere and that's what came back to me.

And when I slowly fought through the analysis to offer a better version of myself, that's what started to come back at me.

And I had been away from the book community for a long time and when I came back I thought, wow, I don't know if people will remember me or if they'll want to engage with me.

And the first event I did was in Denver with a bunch of indie booksellers.

And it was wonderful.

I gave a speech and they were so kind.

And I remember walking down to the displays floor where all the books are out and you see all of these indie booksellers like just so hungry to find the right book for their community, the right books.

And I think of it as soul medicine, to bring back to their communities.

And these aren't people that are making tremendous amounts of money for doing this, they're probably paying their own money to be there but they are these cheerful people that are really eager to find the best in people and to celebrate that.

And it was a really stark reminder that quite frankly made me a little emotional 'cause I didn't know how people would accept me after I came back after five years.

And to be embraced like that and to see that the world is a lot kinder than I thought it was.

In early sobriety it was shocking and medicinal.

And my analyst often says that reality is medicinal.

And I think sometimes we build up these fantasies in our minds as defenses and we need to get out into the world to see that our fantasies aren't often negative, fantasies aren't often accurate.

(slow music) I chose the epistolary form because I couldn't write.

And my wife told me, "Well, you can still write letters to people."

I write to all of my friends and I love writing emails.

And so she suggested to write another book in letters 'cause I'd done it with "The Good Luck of Right Now."

And I said no, I don't want to do that, I really didn't, I fought it.

And then my buddy Nick Butler, the novelist, Nick Butler, without knowing that Alicia had said that to me a year later said the same thing.

He's like, "Well, you write me letters, "obviously can write letters why don't you try that?"

And I thought, man, I have to try this.

And that was also something that was one of the things that broke the spell.

As soon as I went up to the room and wrote dear Carl, all of a sudden I felt that I could write.

And I think there's something, as someone who's an introvert I like intimacy.

And I would much rather talk to one person one-on-one than go to a party and talk to a lot of people.

So a letter is a device where you're having a relationship between two people.

So the book is this relationship between Lucas and analyst Carl.

So there was something that just felt right about it for this.

And I also think the thing I like about the letter writing too is it's really Lucas is burying his soul on the page.

And so we get to analyze him, but we also get to psychoanalyze him in a way that we know more about him than he knows.

So there's a lot of dramatic irony there too which I think in some ways is heartbreaking, but it's also exciting at the same time too.

And the town of Majestic after Lucas has this break and he creates this narrative, this fantastical narrative about his wife appearing as an angel, they really hold that fantasy for him in this really beautiful way until he's ready to let go of it.

And so, as the audience as you read the book, like you're tasked with holding Lucas's psyche in this really fragile way it's too.

And so I like to think of it as, I don't know, almost like an empathy machine.

Like you read this book and you're put in this task of being empathetic to this broken man.

And I think that great literature and I'm not saying my book is great literature but the work that I always enjoy reading, it puts you in a place where it teaches you how to be empathetic, how you cannot be empathetic you get swept up in this story.

(slow music) Someone asked me what I want people to feel at the end of the book.

Someone gets the end of the book, what do you want them to feel?

And I sat there and I thought, it took me a couple moments to come up with the answer, I had to think about it.

But I think the answer to that question is I want people to feel at the end of the book that they are worthy of receiving love and they're worthy of giving love.

And I think that that is what I've been working on myself and my protagonist Lucas is working on as well.

So I think love is a major theme of where I'm at now.

And love was a very taboo word for me growing up.

I didn't grow up amongst men in particular that ever said they loved me ever.

And I think that I needed to figure out how to remedy that and to be able to engage with people in a way that was sober and also vulnerable and loving at the same time.

And I think that that's really what my character Lucas is doing throughout the novel he experiences this horrific tragedy.

And there are all these people in his life that want to love him, but because he doesn't think he's worthy of love, he has a hard time accepting that and he feels like he has to earn that.

But really his ego throughout the book is trying to find ways to earn love but it's only when he's completely shattered and ego is destroyed that he can really accept love because the ego gets knocked offline and these people rally and he's not able to do anything anymore.

And that's when he really has to fall to this default position of almost being childlike and accepting love.

And so I think that that was part of my journey too.

Lucas is not me, he's not my alter ego.

And I didn't go through what happens in the book but symbolically I think that's really what I've been going through the last five years.

- Thank you so much for being here.

It's just I love talking to you, I can talk to you all day.

- Thank you, it's my pleasure.

I feel the same way J.T.

- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words."

I'm J.T.

Ellison, keep reading.

(bell rings)