Excerpt from The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I previously stated, Mom was quite a fan of yours—you probably visited our kitchen table before, but to be honest, I don't remember a specific Richard Gere visit from childhood. Regardless, I indulged her and played my role, so you were manifested through me, even though I'm not as handsome, and therefore made a poor stand-in. I hope you don't mind my having invoked you without your permission. It was a simple thing that gave Mom great pleasure. Her face lit up like the Wanamaker's Christmas Light Show every time you came to visit. And after the failed chemo and brain surgery, and the awful sick, retching aftermath, it was hard to get her to smile or be happy about anything, which is why I went along with the game of you and me becoming we.

It started one night after we watched our well-worn VCR copy of Pretty Woman, one of Mom's favorite movies.

As the end credits rolled, she patted my arm and said, "I'm going to bed now, Richard." I looked at her, and she smiled almost mischievously—like I'd seen the sexy fast girls do with their shiny painted lips back when I was in high school. That salacious smile made me feel nauseated, because I knew it meant trouble. It was so unlike Mom too. It was the beginning of living with a stranger.

I said, "Why did you call me Richard?"

She laid her hand gently on my thigh, and in this very flirtatious girlish voice, while batting her eyelids, she said, "Because that's your name, silly."

During the thirty-eight years we had known each other, Mom had never once before called me "silly."

The tiny angry man in my stomach pounded my liver with his fists.

I knew we were in trouble.

"Mom, it's me—Bartholomew. Your only son."

When I looked into her eyes, she didn't seem to see me. It was like she was having a vision—seeing what I could not.

It made me wonder if Mom had used some sort of womanly witchcraft and turned me into you somehow.

That we—you and me—had become one in her mind.

Richard Gere.

Bartholomew Neil.

We.

Mom took her hand off my thigh and said, "You're a handsome man, Richard, the love of my life even, but I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. You made your choice, so you'll just have to sleep on the couch. See you in the morning." Then she floated up the stairs, moving quicker than she had in months.

She looked ecstatic.

Like the haloed saints depicted in stained glass at Saint Gabriel's, Mom seemed to be guided by divinity. Her madness appeared holy. She was bathed in light.

As uncomfortable as that exchange was, I liked seeing Mom lit up. Happy. And pretending has always been easy for me. I have pretended my entire life. Plus there was the game from my childhood, so I had certainly practiced.

Somehow—because who can say exactly how these things come to be—over many days and weeks, Mom and I slipped into a routine.

We both began pretending.

She pretended I was you, Richard Gere.

I pretended Mom wasn't losing her mind.

I pretended she wasn't going to die.

I pretended I wouldn't have to figure out life without her.

Things escalated, as they say.

Excerpted from The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick. Copyright © 2014 by Matthew Quick. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.