John Neufeld

16-year-old Lisa is going downhill fast, and it seems like the only people who care are her three friends, Betsy, Elizabeth, and Mary Nell. With the exception of a concerned high school counselor, no adults seem to care, despite Lisa’s escalating and violent behavior. Her parents are in complete denial, and even though the three of them try to help Lisa with a kind of “group therapy”, she keeps sliding deeper and deeper into psychosis. (Though Lisa’s diagnosis is never explored, her show more symptoms and behavior point to schizophrenia.)

Written in 1969, in some ways this book is fairly outdated, in terms of language, idioms, figures of speech and such, but it has core themes that are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago. I think it stands as an accurate, necessary and a very intense depiction of mental illness in teenagers. show less

I suspect that Alfred Hitchcock would have loved April Fool, John Neufeld’s darkly comic novel about a man struggling to cope with the realization that more years of his life are behind than ahead of him. April Fool, in fact, shares many of the elements often present in classic Hitchcock films of the 1950s and 1960s: suspense, a gallows sense of humor, and quirky, often unlikable and weak, characters that get into situations way over their heads.

George Willetts and his wife Peg, in search show more of what they see as a more suitable lifestyle for people their age, have moved from New York City to small town Connecticut. Peg has settled in rather nicely to her new life but George is not adjusting nearly so well. George, in fact, has developed the unfortunate habit of imagining that he is having a fatal heart attack during the wee hours of the morning and has become quite the regular at his local hospital emergency room. He has even admitted to his analyst that his one remaining desire in life is to have one last romantic fling so that he will be able to die in the knowledge that he truly experienced life and did not waste his final years.

George, ever hopeful that he will find an attractive woman for that one last fling, largely confines his search to the internet where he exchanges romantic email fantasies with would-be lovers. But that all changes one day with his chance meeting of well-known author, Valerie Herrick, a beautiful woman who seems as attracted to George as he is to her.

To say that George is smitten by Valerie is an understatement, so once she makes it clear that she wants no part of a relationship in which she plays the role of “the other woman,” George has to decide just how much he is willing to do to keep her in his life. He is a world-class liar, having worked most of his life as campaign consultant to various politicians of all stripes, so he has little difficulty in explaining the presence of a wife in a way that keeps Valerie on the hook, at least for the short term.

But George wants much more than the kind of long distance relationship he and Valerie have limited themselves to, and he knows that he must decide, once and for all, whether or not he is willing to do whatever it takes to become a real part of Valerie’s life. And that is when George learns who he really is.

April Fool does not offer the laugh-out-loud variety of dark comedy. Rather, John Neufield uses humor to get inside George Willetts in a way that keeps him from coming across as quite the villain that he probably is. George, though, is really kind of a dolt and watching him scheme his way into the arms of his new lover is a bit like watching a train wreck – hard to look away from even though you anticipate the impact of the crash.

Rated at: 3.5 show less

"daddy, I think I'm going crazy".

Mary Nell looked up astonished.

"Oh Mr. shilling said. "Why is that?"

"I can't tell you", Lisa said. "I just think it's true. And I'm frightened."

Lisa, Bright and Dark by John Neufeld

Possible triggers..Mental Illness, attempted suicide.

My Review:

This book is described by critics as "a work of art" and it is.

I first read this as a child and have reread through the years. It remains just as great a read now as then. This book was way ahead of it's time as there show more was not much YA about mental illness. Of coarse times have changed and we know much more then we did then but the book ages well and this story of one young woman's tragic illness and her band of loving and loyal friends who go all in to help her remains a magnificent and important read. show less

This was probably a good book back in 1969, but it's terminally dated now, much like the similar I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Lisa would probably, nowadays, be diagnosed with schizophrenia.

If you want to see how mental illness was ignored back then, or if you're a middle-aged adult wanting to go back to your teenage years, this might be good to read. But the modern reader should understand that psychiatrists, and the general public, take a much different approach to Lisa's problems show more today than they did at the time this story was written. show less