The New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook offers a timely novel
featuring his most fascinating character yet a Vietnam vet embarking on a quixotic crusade to
track down his nemesis from the war. After sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW
medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange
exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever
heard-that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline. David decides
to return something precious he long ago stole from the man he now calls Clayton Fire Bear. It
may be the only way to find closure in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to
protect. It may also help him to finally recover from his wife's untimely demise. As David
confronts his past to salvage his present a poignant portrait emerges: that of an opinionated
and good-hearted American patriot fighting like hell to stay true to his red white and blue
heart even as the country he loves rapidly changes in ways he doesn't always like or
understand. Hanging in the balance are Granger's distant art-dealing son Hank his adoring
seven-year-old granddaughter Ella and his best friend Sue a Vietnamese American who
respects David's fearless sincerity. Through the controversial wrenching and wildly honest
David Granger Matthew Quick offers a no-nonsense but ultimately hopeful view of America's
polarized psyche. By turns irascible and hilarious insightful and inconvenient David is a
complex wounded honorable and loving man. The Reason You're Alive examines how the secrets
and debts we carry from our past define us it also challenges us to look beyond our own
prejudices and search for the good in us all.
