Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

By: Jeanette Winterson

Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most acclaimed books of the last three 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 considered one of the most important books in contemporary fiction. Jeanette’s adoptive mother loomed over her life until Jeanette finally moved out at sixteen because she was in love with a woman. As Jeanette left behind the strict confines of her youth, her mother asked, “Why be happy when you could be normal?”

This memoir is the chronicle of a life’s work to find happiness. It is 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 drawer; about growing up in a north England industrial town in the 1960s and 1970s; and about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had written over and repainted, rose to haunt her later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about literature, one that shows how fiction and poetry can guide us when we are lost. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging - for love, identity, and a home.

©2011 Jeanette Winterson (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"To read Jeanette Winterson is to love her. . . . The fierce, curious, brilliant British writer is winningly candid in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? . . . [Winterson has] such a joy for life and love and language that she quickly becomes her very own one-woman bandone that, luckily for us, keeps playing on." ( O, the Oprah Magazine)

"Moving, honest . . . Rich in detail and the history of the northern English town of Accrington, Winterson's narrative allows readers to ponder, along with the author, the importance of feeling wanted and loved." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"Raw . . . A highly unusual, scrupulously honest, and endearing memoir." ( Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

Excellent memoir

Excellent memoir. I really enjoyed this author. Very insiteful and thought provoking. This will lead me to read her other books.

the poetry of my teenage self

I loved JW as a teen and her prose has only gotten better. very thoughtful and heartfelt memoir. and the serious discourse on the impact of adoption on long term mental health and suicidal thoughts was very sobering.

I’m hooked and inspired! Feminist memoir

This is a gorgeous memoir about love and loss, identity and belonging, sexuality and feminism, literature, and the makings of a prized British author. Sound great? It is!

The beginning was powerful enough to bring Winterson way up into my top five authors. Her wit, humor, and deep insight had me jotting down memorable lines by the half hour, dazzled and inspired.
The mid and later sections made a dramatic shift in terms of the narrative style and became a very tender and personal interior study, and in places fell into more psychology than story. Although, life is indeed psychology, so I kept reading.
I loved Winterson’s reading of her own writing, which I don’t believe could be topped. I will definitely be reading more of Winterson and looking into the film about her life produced by the BBC, Oranges.
If you love Deborah Levy, Virginia Woolf, and Sarah Waters, try this.

All around great

I read the paperback, and then listened to the audiobook. One right after the other and it was highly enjoyable on both occasions. Winterson is honest and direct in a most refreshing way.

BELONGING

“Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?” is an autobiographical story published in 2012 by and about Jeanette Winterson, a famous, and talented English writer. It is about belonging to something greater than one self.

Unconditional love only exists between pets and humans; not humans and humans. This is not a cosmic exploration of childhood but it is an intimate and insightful look at an adult’s remembrance of childhood.

Parents do make mistakes with their children but Winterson shows how mistakes can be turned into useful life experiences. The scary part of that usefulness is how much luck is involved in the process.

Brilliant

This woman is a brilliant, dear woman. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book, but it turns out that she and I have a couple of key things in common. So, this story really hit home with me.

Beyond that, she has a knack for processing and interpreting events in such a lovely, poignant, and *true* way. One of the critics said "To read Jeanette Winterson is to lover her," and I really could not agree more.

I love that she narrated this book. I listen to a lot of audio books, and I can be critical of narrators, especially authors that don't have a good voice for it. She has a GREAT voice for it, though, and the content was made all the more compelling by hearing it directly from her.

Emotional experience

Beautiful but painful memoir. It's criminal that such open child abuse can go unnoticed . The author writes in a way that truly brings her experiences to life. I do feel that she paints all adoption with a very wide brush- I believe that many adopted children do have wonderful lives and are very lucky. I'm so sorry for what she had to endure- but what an amazing person she turned out to be.

Autobiography of the woman who wrote Oranges

If you have read "Oranges are not the only fruit" which is a semi autobiographical novel, then you will want to read this autobiography of the author. If you aren't familiar with Oranges, read that first. It won the Whitbread Award when first released (as that year’s best novel from a first time writer) and went on to be required reading in British schools --- for a host of reasons, the least of which is that the central character is a lesbian and it's a "coming out" story, and far more because it is a succeeding in the face of adversity story -- the author came from a working class family that were pentecostals and who didn't believe in books beyond the bible, was made homeless at 16 but went on to graduate from Oxford

In this book she re-explores her childhood, but where Oranges was semi autobiographical this is closer to truth -- she explores how as much as she hated her abusive adoptive mother --- this is a woman who made her adoptive daughter always feel other to the extent of refusing to give her key to her own home... she was only allowed in if someone else was there to let her in or they left the back door unlocked for her before ultimately making her homeless when she didn't prove to be what they wanted her to be .... and then jumps forward to her search for who her biological mother was, who her adoptive mother had told her had died because of being sinful and disrepute ... only to discover that was lie

I love this ….

“The makings of a prized British author”? Really? This from the review posted before mine. Anyway, I enjoyed this so much more hearing JW READ it to me than I did reading it to my own self! Such exquisite prose. Jeanette, if you read this, please record Written on the Body next: it’s one of my five desert island books, quite possibly the most brilliant book I’ve ever read. Oh, and I’m an English professor 😉

Important

Winterson's writing is honest, straightforward, and heartfelt. Her performance is engrossing. This is a beautifully contextualized memoir that is about coming to terms with one's self in every way possible and the transformative power of reading and writing.