Nutters

by P.J. Davy

Rufus Waters has had enough of being labelled a loon. Enough of medication and therapy. Enough of pitying looks and nervous changes of subject. Enough of being stood up and turned down. Enough, in short, of being a nutter. 'I choose sanity, ' he informs his erstwhile girlfriend bi-polar Kate. Rufus shrugs off Kate's misgivings and forges ahead with his plans for the New Improved Rufus Waters. He bins his medication, sacks his glamorous psychiatrist, and quickly acquires both job and new girlfriend in a matter of days. This promising start is, however, a false dawn. Soon his re-invented self, in his freshly-picked sane world, is falling apart and it takes the wisdom of a drug-addled Latin professor to bring some sense to his world once more.

Genres: Mental Health, Mental Illness

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Bean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book follows three friends who are struggling with mental illness. As far as I'm familiar with these mental illnesses, it does a decent job of describing the experience. All three friends are flawed but lovable characters. That said, I think the book would have been better if Rufus had been a bit younger. His behavior, language use, and way of living don't seem to fit a 35-year-old, even one who has lived a pretty sheltered life. The book was decent but never explored its subjects deeply enough, and its attempts at humor often fell flat. I would have liked some more exploration of the main characters' lives and experiences. There were also quite a lot of spelling errors in the book, which distracted me from the story. I liked it but don't think I'll read it again in the future.

[Gwen Kooi · Rating 2 out of 5]

When compared to "Paaz" or "Up" by Myrthe van der Meer, which books are based on the writer's experiences too, Nutters falls short in the way that it does not make the world of people with a psychic illness felt as awful, often heart-breaking, and all-influencing as Paaz does. Maybe that is due to the so called comic aspect (although I did not find it comic or even tragi-comic at all): it may have taken the rawest edges off while not succeeding in the comic turn. Therefore for me it was no more than OK: not bad but not really gripping either.