Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Paperback)

'Unforgettable... It's the best book I have ever read about the cost of growing up.' - Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published.

It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival.

This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness, about lessons in love, the search for a mother and a journey into madness and out again. It is generous, honest and true.

Jeanette Winterson OBE is a British writer, broadcaster and activist. Her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was published in 1985 to international acclaim. Winterson's subsequent novels, including Sexing the Cherry, Written On the Body and The Stone Gods, explore the boundaries of physicality and metaphysicality, sexual identities and gender polarities.