Author Matthew Quick Interview w/ Marly Rusoff

Schedule

Sat Oct 24 2026 at 01:00 pm to 02:30 pm

UTC-04:00
Location

USCB Center for the Arts | Beaufort, SC

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Catch a conversation with Matthew Quick and Marly Rusoff diving into The Silver Linings Playbook and his new memoir Dad. Love. Me.
About this Event

Don't miss this opportunity to get up close with Beaufort resident and best-selling author Matthew Quick, in an interview with Marly Rusoff, founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center. They'll discuss both The Silver Linings Playbook and his new Memoir Dad, Love, Me and many more wide-ranging topics.

The interview is from 1-2PM, followed by a book signing (book not included in ticket price) 2-2:30PM.

ABOUT: Dad, Love, Me:

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • 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.
“This book will gut you and then, somehow, put you back together.” —Scott Galloway • “Dad, Love, Me is a masterpiece….It will change people’s lives.” —Lori Gottlieb • “A gut punch of a memoir…What a gift this book is.” —Catherine Newman • “For all its heavy subject matter, the book has a remarkably light touch and sense of grace.” —Kirkus Reviews
“What begins as an excavation of childhood trauma gradually becomes something rarer and more enlightening: an account of what happens when forgiveness arrives only after the parent who most needs it begins losing the ability to understand it....It’s difficult to read this book without feeling that some redemption and reconciliation—between parents and children, between scarred memory and forgiveness—have become possible.” —The New York Times
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 Silver Linings Playbook: A New York Times bestseller, The Silver Linings Playbook was adapted into the Oscar-winning movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. It tells the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife's betrayal. During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia Eagles keep losing, making his father moody; and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy. When Pat meets the tragically widowed and clinically depressed Tiffany, she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife, if only he will give up watching football, agree to perform in this year's Dance Away Depression competition, and promise not to tell anyone about their "contract." All the while, Pat keeps searching for his silver lining. In this brilliantly written debut novel, Matthew Quick takes us inside Pat's mind, deftly showing us the world from his distorted yet endearing perspective. The result is a touching and funny story that helps us look at both depression and love in a wonderfully refreshing way.

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Where is it happening?

USCB Center for the Arts, 805 Carteret Street, Beaufort, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

USD 23.18

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Pat Conroy Literary Center Inc.
Host or PublisherPat Conroy Literary Center Inc.

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