Nutters by P.J. Davy: book review

Nutters: Mad, Sad, and Dangerous to No-One (2009) is set in the United Kingdom in contemporary times.

The main characters are depressive 35-year-old Rufus Waters who has not held a job in 10 years, and bi-polar Kate who works at a local store and sings to handle her day-to-day challenges in keeping her life together. Their friends – inmates at the Belmont Hospital – are Teach and Mute Mavis, and a host of others.

For Rufus, his life spiralled downwards from the age of eleven when his father died. His older brother Matthew and his mother Lydia tell him to ‘pull himself together’ – and despite this, he lives a daily highly-medicated life.

Rufus has had enough of being mad. He’s had enough of medication and his psychiatrist. He throws his medication in the bin and says goodbye to his doctor and nurses. He wants to live a normal, sane life.

Within days of his decision, he has a job AND a girlfriend – and she is not from his usual circle of depressive, manic, bi-polar, self-harming friends. How good is that? How normal is that? But, of course, he doesn’t tell his work colleagues and his new girlfriend Abigail the truth about his mad life.

The problem now, for Rufus, is to maintain a ‘sane’ life with new friends – but, what about his long time previous friendships?

P.J. Davy writes of the role of medication, weekly checkups, the reactions of society towards people with life issues, derisive comments and lack of understanding, and the need to be true to yourself. She writes of the dark side of her characters’ psyche and the everyday comic side of living.

P.J. Davy writes from experience. She has the balance right – not preachy, not glamorized, not morbid or depressing – just honest writing. It’s about finding individual liberation in difficult times.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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