Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

Today’s post is on Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? By Jeanette Winterson. It is 242 pages long and is published by Grove Atlantic Press. The cover is a picture of the Winterson when she was a child at the beach. The intended reader is someone who likes memoirs. There is some mild foul language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the blurb on Hoopla- Jeanette Winterson's novels have establishing her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life's work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging for love, identity, home, and a mother.

Review- An interesting memoir about a woman looking for a mother and what not having one can do to the self. Jeanette Winter is a popular fiction writer but in this memoir she discusses her childhood and family life growing up. She is very honest about having a mother who is not well mentally and who does not know really what to do with her daughter. Winterson is very open when discussing her pain over having a mother who could not understand her or at times even wanted her. Winterson’s life at times is very tragic with her mother and father just not knowing how to raise her and at times is frustrating with how she handled her life herself.  At times Winterson would go off on tangent and lose me totally until she continued the narrative of her life. In general, an interesting memoir with some moments of being lost from the narrative. If you are a fan of the author or survival memoirs, then you should enjoy this book.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library’s Hoopla account.