Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
2011
- women authors
- childhood and youth
- biography
- english authors
- mothers and daughters
- lesbians
- lesbians, biography
- authors, biography
- family
- english novelists
The story
Memories of the author about her difficult childhood as the adopted daughter of an English mother with strong religious convictions, and her subsequent search for her biological mother.
What it’s like
Plain, unshowy prose that moves like a voice talking directly to you: sharp, funny, and often startlingly lyrical when the memories turn dark. The page feels cold and bare in places, with the stark imagery of a Lancashire mill town in winter, back-kitchen gloom, chapel hymns and the smell of coal smoke, then warms into rooms full of books and the bright, improvised freedom of a life being built from scratch. Sentences are often short and declarative, broken by digressions, lists and sudden flashes of wit that keep a heavy subject from sinking under its own weight. Its emotional register is wry, bruised and defiant, a memoir of a girl learning to trust her own mind against a home ruled by fear and certainty. The arc is one of a young woman reclaiming her story piece by piece, moving from confinement toward a hard-won sense of self. Intensity is moderate: emotional cruelty, religious coercion and some frightening scenes of punishment, but no graphic violence and no sexual content on the page. Good for readers who want a candid, witty, intelligent memoir for a quiet evening, and for those drawn to stories of family, identity and the search for where one belongs.
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