Lisa, Bright and Dark

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Written in 1969, in some ways this book is fairly outdated, in terms of language, idioms, figures of speech and such, but it has core themes that are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago.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

A very good, realistic, sad protrayal of a young girl's descent into madness, and her parent's denial.

This book contains the line "We all rushed to Elizabeth's house at lunch and nearly raped Dr. Donovan for news." Oh man. Neufeld follows up with "(I looked that up. It means "to seize", which is perfectly OK in this sense.)". Needless to say, this book is a little creepy since it's an older male author writing as a 16-year-old girl who is sexually naive but totally obsessed with boys.

But really, the whole thing reads less like a story about people and more like a public service announcement about mental illness in teenage girls. It's a pretty shallow portrayal. We are told Lisa is crazy, and certain incidents are described, but we're not shown much. True, it was written in 1969, but it hasn't aged well. Not impressed.

There were a few specifics that didn't quite "ring true" for me, but that might be due to the style of the writing prevalent in the late sixties. Overall, the general issues were presented well and it was easy to identify with Lisa and her friends. Lisa herself reminded me of one of my patients many years ago--a young woman whose long black hair was parted in the middle and draped over her eyes like two heavy black draperies. On her good days, we were allowed to see her eyes and on her bad days her eyes were completely covered. A good read and I'm glad the book was selected for reprinting.

This book is definitely dated in its social references and hopefully, in its portrayal of how mental illness is dealt with in families and public schools. However, it remains a strong story about young people who are willing to do anything necessary to get a friend the help she needs.