Helen Humphreys barely gets a word wrong. In this story informed by real events that took place from1947 through the 1970's she tells the story of Leonard Flint, and 11 year old boy who befriends a drifter who sells rabbits feet as good luck charms. He then witnesses Rabbit Foot Bill murdering a classmate who had been bullying Leonard.

Leonard goes on to become a psychiatrist at Weyburn Psychiatric Hospital where he experiences a crisis related to his past.

The story has been fictionalized. And the writing is flawless. ( )

True Crime Fiction
Review of the HarperCollins Publishers hardcover (August 18, 2020)

Helen Humphreys' Rabbit Foot Bill is an historical fiction based on the main facts of a true crime that occurred in Canwood, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1947. A local drifter nicknamed Rabbit Foot Bill (who made a living by selling "lucky" rabbit's feet*) killed another man by stabbing him with a pair of gardening shears. The elements of the true case can be read at this Canadian CBC News report.

The crime was witnessed by a young boy named Hugh LeFave and the murderer William Young went to prison where he later died. Hugh LeFave grew up to work at the notorious Weyburn Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan (1921 - closed in 2004/demolished in 2009). Weyburn is notorious due to the amount of experimentation** done there on patients, especially alcoholics, using LSD as a treatment. Weyburn psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond was the first to use the term psychedelic to describe LSD and similar drugs.

See photograph at https://img.atlasobscura.com/pWZN2qr4WD0PQGK1RLQZUz9t9OrnO_rdCCllX8V32vU/rt:fit/...
Photograph of the now closed & demolished Weyburn Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. Image sourced from Atlas Obscura.

Humphreys heard the history of the case directly from Hugh LeFave and used it as the basis of her fiction where a young boy named Leonard Flint is friends with the drifter Rabbit Foot Bill in 1947. Bill kills a town bully who has tormented Leonard, and is sent to prison as a result. In 1959, Leonard has grown up to become a doctor whose first job is to go to work at Weyburn where he again meets Rabbit Foot Bill, who has been transferred there.

The fictional story takes a completely different path from the real life case and is masterfully written. The fictional Leonard Flint has an obsessive interest in Rabbit Foot Bill and ignores his assigned regular duties as a result. We learn gradually that part of the reason was that his friendship with Bill represented a refuge from abuse in the family home and the bullying at school. The reunion at Weyburn takes a tragic turn though, and both Leonard's and Bill's lives change again. In the denouement, taking place 11 years later in 1970, Leonard returns home to Canwood, Saskatchewan to reconcile with his past.

I've become a regular fan of Helen Humphreys since reading her mixed non-fiction/fiction novel Machine Without Horses (2018) and her memoir And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection, the Writing Life (2022). I'm planning to discover more of her writing, likely in reverse order, with another memoir Nocturne: On the Life and Death of My Brother (2013) as my next read of Humphreys.

Trivia and Links
* If you want to go down the rabbit hole of What Makes a Rabbit's Foot Lucky? you can read this article at Scientific American from October 26, 2011.

** Thankfully, Humphreys doesn't describe or discuss any of the lobotomies performed at Weyburn. I don't think I could stand reading anything further on that subject after Doctor Ice Pick (2022). ( )

Loved it! Wonderful, beautiful writing.

Lenny befriends a local man, known as Rabbit Foot Bill, who is a gentle soul who lives in a cave with his dogs. One day, Lenny witnesses Bill commit a violent murder. Fifteen years later, Lenny is a psychiatrist starting his first job at a mental health institute where Bill is a patient. Lenny tries to rekindle his relationship with Bill.....

This book raises so many issues about mental health and its treatment, about post-traumatic stress, about friendship and loyalty. Great story. ( )

This is the most recent book written by one of my favourite authors. It is quiet and intense and tells a story that Humphreys saw referenced.

From the author's note it states:
"This story is based on a murder that took place in Canwood Saskatchewan in 1947 and on the LSD drug trials that were undertaken in the Weyburn Mental Hospital through the 1950's."

Although it is a story of various tragedies, I loved it! What a talented writer! ( )

A real-life murder story from 1947 in Saskatchewan is related as a fictional tale in Humphreys' spare style. The child witness becomes a psychologist and meets up with his friend Rabbit Foot Bill in the Weyburn Mental Hospital where Bill is a patient. It's a strange story, made stranger by the alarming mental health treatment of the 1950s, including patients and doctors experimenting with LSD. Humphreys is an accomplished writer and this disturbing tale is typical of her style. ( )