Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Title: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Memoir
Nutshell: Award-winning author Jeanette Winterson writes about her memories of growing up adopted and gay in a religious household and coming to terms with both of those truths as she grows up

This book's title is something Jeanette Winterson's adoptive mother actually said to her one evening as Jeanette was leaving home, after trying once again to explain why, exactly, she wanted to date other girls. She never got through to her ultra-religious mother, who preferred to take her life lessons from the Old Testament and Revelations, and who was probably more than a little mentally unbalanced. To say Winterson's childhood was harrowing at times is an understatement, and that she came out of it even as well-adjusted as she did is a minor miracle. 

This memoir is in some ways the true story behind Winterson's first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which was a fairly fictionalized account of her upbringing and eventual coming out story. She says in this book that Oranges, as bizarre and bleak as it was, was in many ways more wishful and happier than the truth, because she couldn't yet deal with the real truth at the time. 

Why Be Happy bounces back and forth between two eras in Winterson's life.  The first is her childhood in Lancashire, which includes her unstable mother, her silent father, her religious life, her surreptitious trips to the library in order to read the books her mother bans from the house, and her eventual romances with neighborhood girls.  The second is her adulthood, after she leaves home to attend Oxford and eventually moves to London, where she continues to attempt to make peace with her adoption, her upbringing, and her parents. She also decides to track down her birth mother, which unleashes more trauma and grief than she bargains for. 

This was a good example of a memoir done well by an interesting author who definitely has a tale to tell. Her story continues to be one of hope and fighting past the odds, and also about the importance of owning your past, no matter how painful.