The Georgie Gust Exhibit

"This short novel by New Mexico writer Jonathan Harnisch features the same urgent anguish--and the same disturbing characters--as the author's 803-page, semi- autobiographical rampage through sexual obsession, schizophrenia and healing, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography. Good news: Living Colorful Beauty stands on its own, serving as a vivid introduction to this gifted, if flawed, writer's teeming mind. 

In 30-year-old Benjamin J. Schreiber, who suffers (like Harnisch) from schizoaffective disorder and Tourette's Syndrome, the author has created a brilliant and memorable psychotic. In reckless Georgie Gust, he delivers a convincing alter-ego to whom Ben can transfer "my confessionary details, my sins, my fetishes." As in Alibiography, their destructive common fantasy is the cruel, manipulative siren Claudia Nesbitt. Their possible salvation? An insightful shrink called Dr. C. 

Once again, Harnisch's prose is simultaneously original and confusing: "the words in my head have turned to salad," Ben tells us, but "my imagination's on fire." Careening between New York and Southern California, and even more wildly between the searing traumas of Ben's childhood and the perilous uncertainties of his present, the narrative reveals a tormented soul who is "merely a spy, an observer, into the world of my hallucinations" but who can sometimes make peace with his demons. "Let me lose my mind," Ben muses. "Fuck it. I'm going out for a walk on the beach. The beach is a block away. The voices in my head are raging. They're calling me a winner." 

For Harnisch, who playfully calls himself "the king of mental illness," writing fiction is clearly therapeutic. An editor character tells Ben: "The problem though is that your reader cannot possibly follow your train of thought," and that's often our problem, too. But the authenticity of Harnisch's voice bursts through the tangles and repetitions of his language. He's the real thing." 

-- BlueInk Review

Jonathan Harnisch is an "artist, dreamer, man on a mission, and human being just like you." He is also "a deeply troubled and disturbed person," who lives with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. He is committed to sharing his unique life online in order to help others.

Through a relentless, direct encounter with his schizophrenic self and thoughts, Harnisch offers a rare insight into this often misunderstood disorder. Extraordinarily, the message is one of resilience and hope, finding rare wisdom through enduring and learning to understand his psychotic episodes. Rather than retreating into his own troubles, Harnisch journeys inside himself in order to understand the humanity that he shares with others: "The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about."

For all its fearless honesty, The Brutal Truth is throughout an affirmation of life. As Harnisch says, "I write and publish what I want and what I feel, no matter what mood or state of mind I am in, but I always do my best to keep things positive." After all, he knows that he is "a legitimate, loving, grateful, and spiritual human being who deserves to be loved and accepted and who deserves to make decisions, to make mistakes, and to be forgiven."

The Brutal Truth shows that it is by acknowledging the schizophrenic experience that we can come to understand and deal with it. Harnisch's essays offer daring descriptions of what it is like to live--moment upon moment--with schizophrenia. These essays are written to help others undergoing mental disorders. They will also help those who want to better understand what their loved ones are going through so that they can help them more effectively and more compassionately.

But these essays are not just for those affected by psychiatric disorders. All readers will feel enriched after spending time with Harnisch in this extraordinary and too often untold schizophrenic world. As Harnisch says, "We schizophrenics, through our psychosis--our delusions, our hallucinations, our reality--create or develop a story." Seldom has the schizophrenic story been told with such unflinching honesty and truth.

When We Were Invincible by Jonathan Harnisch is written in the vein of Catcher in the Rye or The World According to Garp, When We Were Invincible is a coming-of-age novella, which details the experiences of outsider Georgie Gust navigating the fictional St. Michael’s Academy, a prestigious East Coast boarding school. Georgie suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and early onset schizophrenia, which makes his journey all the more poignant. In addition to When We Were Invincible, I have written several screenplays and the semi-autobiographical novel, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography. My own diagnosis of Tourette’s Syndrome and other mental illnesses informs my work and helps educate the public on what it is to live with these disabilities.

Glad You're Not Me, takes the act of transgression to another level. Harnisch, the author himself, discovers he has been fictionalized as a character in an old friend's chapbook, and decides to come out of the woodwork as a real person, The Mentally Ill Artist, in this explicit transgressive reaction chapbook.

The collected writings of Jonathan Harnisch mark a magnificent contribution to the public understanding of mental illness through a masterpiece of transgressive fiction with a heart. The general reader is finally able to see mainstream literary author Jonathan Harnisch at his best. Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia contain the works of 2014, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography and Second Alibi: The Banality of Life, in one complete streaming narrative. The monumental scale of Harnisch’s achievement through adversity flourishes and can now be appreciated in this diverse, invaluable, and thought-provoking collection of fragmented fiction, which will make your brain spin as Harnisch's sense of the inner machinations within the human experience spring into life through the written word. It forces one to question reality and step into another world wanting the protagonist and his alter ego to get it together and be okay. The author reveals himself through a series of alibis in the day-to-day meetings of multiple personalities, a corner of psychiatry that is hardly understood, and shedding light on the experiences of schizophrenia in a language that the non-sufferer can understand, albeit from the author who suffers himself. Not for the faint of heart, this fictionalized account of a disparate mind triumphs.

Manifesto on Mental Health (2013) Sequel to Being A Mentally ill Artist (2012) A Portrait of Mentally Ill Artist Jonathan Harnisch in December 2013.

Glad You're Not Me, takes the act of transgression to another level. Harnisch, the author himself, discovers he has been fictionalized as a character in an old friend's chapbook, and decides to come out of the woodwork as a real person, The Mentally Ill Artist, in this explicit transgressive reaction chapbook.

The cognitive treatment for the persecutory delusions of Jonathan Harnisch on November 17th, 2015; persecutory delusions conceptualized as threat beliefs. The beliefs are hypothesized to arise from a search for meaning for internal or external experiences that are unusual, anomalous, or emotionally significant for Harnisch.

From my personal Facebook page with those so called real friends I hate for the most part. Anyway, just prior to what I hope will be an inspirational day. I'll just copy of my stupid personal page. I have almost no respect for those people. I hide all of their feeds. I am only interested in myself, not them. They un-friend me everyday. Anyway, here it is. As you know, it feels so good to vent. Then I will self promote and post my shit after I liquidate my retirement fund because I am in debt and overdraft as of yesterday. Jesus, fucking help me. Here it is. Never mind the typos. I am in fact, legally blind if you didn't know that about me by the way but I still get by. I begin today’s vent. That fucking Facebook app that does the stupid solidarité France Flag shit just disappeared while I was trying to support it. I even wanted to use it to make a special edition of my autobiography with a limited edition signed and free solidarité cover to celebrate the world’s need for peace. Fuck it. I no longer want it. Not going to look it up and don’t send it. To conclude my self-sabotaging stupid raging venting verbal violation, and diatribe, in all seriousness, enough is enough, the world is fucking ready for peace. I hate this shit. Fuck today. Here's to a better whenever-the-fuck. I hate this page. I have no respect for it. Leave me. I don’t need you. I’m sorry, guys, in the end of the day I just want to be fucking happy and with some goddamn peace of mind. Fuck schizophrenia, man. I hate my life. I have no appreciation for it and you still want to be friends? Give me a break. None of us even miss the old Jonathan. Oops! I'm sorry. I feel such guilt. I have nobody around here and I don't want anybody. I hurt so bad. I just don't want to be around people anymore. I am sorry, okay? Every little thing gets me so angry. I hate it, too, believe me.

I take a deep breath and relax into myself. Letting go of any and all negative thoughts and worries that have been on my mind lately. Feeling more and more relaxed. I begin to feel more and more comfortable as I meditate, my whole body sinking into the chair. My eyelids have become very heavy. I even twitch slightly at this moment as I let go of tension in my body... I continue. My jaw sinks down, I drop down deeper and deeper, feeling more and more relaxed, my neck, and shoulders, all the way down my arms and finger tips, as they tingle, I meditate. I become aware of a growing peaceful, calm content feeling. My body becomes limp and relaxed. My thoughts begin to melt, a mental massage, all the way down my spine and body, drifting down, deeper and deeper, relaxed, I let this wave of relaxation spread all the way down my legs as they become heavy as lead, becoming limp and relaxed. I am completely relaxed from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. The outside world fades into the background and I turn into my inner world. Letting go, letting go, letting go...