Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (2012) by Jeanette Winterson. When Winterson was a baby, she was adopted by a Pentecostal couple, the female half of whom would later proclaim that they had been "led to the wrong crib" by the Devil. Winterson's adoptive mother was cold and unloving towards her -- among other things, she would lock young Jeanette out of the house overnight for infractions real or imagined. Jeanette Winterson left home at the age of 16 because she was in love with a woman, and never went back. Somehow she got an education at Oxford and managed to write several published books. This book is her own story, and after I got used to her writing style I found it quite readable and entertaining and even moving. The quote that makes up the title of the book -- "Why be happy when you could be normal?" -- is Winterson's adoptive mother's response to the revelation that Winterson loved women. Jeanette's search for her birth mother is both frustrating (bureaucracy) and ultimately touching (she was wanted). I found this book very rewarding. Grade: B+