---

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 crusade to track down his nemesis from the war.

---

When sixty-eight-year-old Vietnam War veteran David Granger wakes up from emergency surgery, he finds himself repeating a name: Clayton Fire Bear, a soldier from whom he stole something long ago. And now, David knows he must make amends. It might be the only way to find happiness in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to protect, and it might also help him recover from the loss of the wife he grieves for every day.

Motivated by his adoring young granddaughter, Ella, David sets out to confront his past in order to salvage his present. Grumpy and argumentative he may be, but ultimately The Reason You´re Alive challenges us to look beyond our own prejudices and search for the good in others.

---

Quick´s prose is sharp and cutting . . . The Reason You´re Alive is a compact powerhouse of a novel. Though brief, it´s subversive, unexpected, and utterly compelling Booklist (Starred Review)

---

Quick, Matthew
Matthew Quick is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Academy Award-winning film, and the young adult novels Sorta Like a Rock Star, Boy21 and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, among other accolades. He is married to the novelist and pianist Alicia Bessette.

---