How Lucky: A Mystery Novel

How Lucky: A Mystery Novel by Will Leitch

Read January 2023 - Zoom Reading Circle

This book grew on me.  It sort of reminded me of Rear Window - that movie with Jimmy Stewart that I love.  It is the story of a man named Daniel who is in a wheelchair because of a childhood disease and is unable to speak or move.  He lives independently, however, and has a contagious optimism mixed with some snarky humor that I just loved.  He has a job, a best friend, and a life he enjoys.  Then he sees a young woman get into a car in the street in front of his house.  When he hears that she is now missing he realizes he may be the last person to see her.  He tries to share what he knows with the police, who disregard him and don’t take the time to communicate with him and with others who are leading a search.  Only his friend Travis and caregiver, Marjani, understand what he has seen and try to help him.  Eventually he connects with the kidnapper and finds himself in mortal danger.  I admit those were tense scenes to read!  So this book has a bit of everything - small town vibe (great descriptions of a real college town and life), insight into spinal muscular atrophy (the debilitating disease Daniel has had since childhood) and random music and movie commentary and snippets thrown in (absolutely delightful!).  Very enjoyable book and different from any other that I have read.  Our Reading Circle book club chose this book because we wanted to read a book that featured a main character with a disability.  So glad we ran across this one!  

Bonus points for the title being the name of a John Prine song - and finding some of the lyrics to that song in the prologue!!  :D 

Notes and Highlights -

My life is nothing but small moments, and so is yours. We don’t live in a series of plot points. We should be thankful for that.

I’m condensing what was an extended discussion about Jeff Tweedy’s warmth and humanity for your benefit.

She was trapped once again by another man who wouldn’t listen to her, who wouldn’t even notice that she was trying to talk, until he decided he was finished.

One of the many annoying things about being disabled is the obligation I always feel to make you feel better about your reactions to me.

can be a lot to process. You just want to walk down the street, maybe grab a beer and catch the end of the Falcons game, and then wham, you’re contemplating how unbearably cruel life on this planet can be and wondering how any sort of kind and caring God could possibly allow a person to suffer so profoundly. As I said: I get it.

The world is a terrifying place these days. We’re all operating right there on the edge of tilt, all the time. This shit can just happen.

There’s a reason there aren’t any fifty-five-year-old terrorists, or at least there weren’t until they all started watching Fox News.

Grief, Mom discovered, was not a problem you could fix, a loose screw you could tighten, a math problem you could solve, a child whose pain you could comfort. It just sat there in your stomach and didn’t move. Sometimes it grew, sometimes it shrank, but it was always, always there. That was the hardest part, she said, harder than anything else, before or after. The grief doesn’t leave. It becomes a part of you. Either you learn to live with it or you die.

I am the lucky one in this regard. I get to go first. I get to leave before grief ever becomes the house guest that never leaves. I get to prance around this world, how lucky, not having to live with the ache of saying goodbye. That’s for them. I’m sad for them that they’ll grieve when I die. But I’m glad I won’t.

I have to include John Prine singing How Lucky... and bonus - around his kitchen table!