Book: Normal Family
Author: Chrysta Bilton
Publisher: Little Brown & Co.
Pages: 336
Read On: iPad
How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days
Plot Summary: For most of her life, Chrysta Bilton was one member of a small, if dysfunctional, family of four. There was her sister, Kaitlyn, her hedonistic, glamorous, gay mum Debra, and Jeffrey, who Debra hand-picked, in an LA hairdressers, to be the father of her children. During Chrysta's unstable childhood, Debra struggled to keep the family afloat and Jeffrey wandered in and out of their lives.
Then, in her twenties, Chrysta discovered that her father had secretly donated his sperm over 500 times - and that she had at least 35 other siblings.
A Normal Family is a captivating coming-of-age memoir about Chrysta's reckoning with the secrets both parents had carefully kept from her. Heartfelt, warm and funny, it's a story of embracing the family we have, in all the forms we find it.
Review: What is a normal family? What constitutes a picture perfect normal family? A Dad, a Mom and 2.5 Kids, maybe a dog or two. Regular, ordinary..just Normal.
Honestly, if you ask me there is no such thing as a Normal Family. Some families do a bang up job of looking like a normal family but behind closed doors, things are anything but normal. Normal is such a narrow social construct.
Yet, most of us want some version of this normal. We work so hard to find our own edition of a good old normal family. Someone of us find a version we make our peace with, others fake it and some spend their whole life chasing this ever elusive thing.
I love any book about families, the messier the better. I love reading about dysfunction families, fiction or non-fiction. But when it comes to non-fiction, I can't resist reading about someone's family dynamics or situation that is markedly different from the one I grew up in and know. There is something almost nosy about how much I want to immerse myself in some other home and see how other people lived. What other people grew up with and had to overcome and survive.
This book had me from the get go: on the face of it, it seemed like a book about a woman meeting her numerous half-siblings, a result of a sperm donor father. And partly, in a very small part actually, it was about that. But for most part (and this just made the book for me), this was a book about growing up in a family that was anything but normal.
Chrysta was born to a lesbian mother in the 1980s, her father, who was in her life, off and on, was a sperm donor and a sort of friend of her mothers. The book starts from right before Chrysta's birth and through her life and her not-so-normal and often chaotic and messy upbringing. We see her childhood and her equations with her mother and her mother's various partners. We see her live a life most of us can't quite imagine. There isn't abuse, not in the strictest sense. But there is a whole lot of negligence and kids left to fend for themselves and a mother spending years addicted and out of control.
I loved this book.
So much.
It had me hooked and invested and very curious to keep reading.
I loved that though written by a grown-up, when talking about her childhood, especially her early childhood, it feels like you are reading from a kid's perspective. We see her believe things and not see things for what they are. The innocence and naivete of a child are intact and that adds so much to the book. It doesn't take you away from the moment. You feel everything eight year old Chrysta sees and feels. You are right there with her as she moves from one home to another. You feel like thirteen year old girl being bullied and under-confident and living in a less than perfect home. There is such honesty and vulnerability in this book and this voice. Just so so good.
I also love that the writer didn't try to sugarcoat her mother's flaws, these flaws make her human. She is a person who is at the end of the day trying to do the best she can. She loves her kids, she's pretty much willed them into existence and wants what's best for them, yet she makes mistake after mistake and harms them and herself. The mom, Debra isn't a perfect mom, she is human, painfully human and maybe all of us would be better off if we saw our parents as people and not their infallible idols.
The Dad- Jeffery, oh man! He broke my heart a little bit, annoyed me and just...he is such a unique person who makes several not-so-great choices. I loved bits in which we see him and learn about his life. I can't imagine living a life he did, rough, mental illness, on the streets, addicted and generally not easy. I also cannot picture a life where my Dad wasn't present and looking after me and my needs and making me feel safe and protected. But I know so many have a complete opposite experience. Jeffery isn't perfect...not by a long shot and he isn't always kind, he is complicated and messy and very, very messed up.
Then there is the fact that Jeffery donated his sperm on a regular basis and has God only knows how many children. Later in life, when Chrysta is in her early 20s, she finds out about her many new siblings and how with time she goes about making peace with this new challenge. It is a unique position to be in, walking around in a world not knowing if the person next to you on the plane/coffee shop/grocery store could be related to you.
This book was such a good look into a family that changes, shifts, is often unstable, crowded, sparse and might seem bonkers but there is love and good intentions and growing up and learning and living.
So good.
Seriously, I cannot recommend it enough.
Pick it up.
Rating: 4/5
TWs: Substance Abuse, Bullying, Eating Disorders, Mental Illness and Sexual Abuse.
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