Matthew Quick on "Dad, Love, Me," Sobriety, and Forgiving the Unforgivable

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About this conversation

New York Times bestselling author Matthew Quick joins Brian for an intimate conversation about Dad, Love, Me , his deeply personal debut memoir written as a letter to his ailing father. Matthew opens up about growing up with an angry and withholding parent, carrying his father’s critical voice into adulthood, and achieving extraordinary literary success while privately struggling with depression, addiction, and creative paralysis. He discusses getting sober, turning to Jungian analysis, and moving closer to his parents after his father was diagnosed with dementia, hoping to find some form of connection before time ran out. Together, Brian and Matthew explore father hunger, wounded masculinity, the inheritance of shame, and the complicated work of forgiving someone who never learned how to love you well. It is a candid and ultimately hopeful conversation about ending generational cycles, choosing compassion without denying the past, and discovering that healing does not always arrive in the form we expect.

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