Traces the author's lifelong search for happiness as the adopted daughter of Pentecostal parents who raised her through practices of fierce control and paranoia, an experience that prompted her to search for her biological mother.
WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL?, a memoir by Jeanette Winterson, takes its title from a question the author was once asked by her adoptive mother. Winterson first found fame with the award-winning novel ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT, about a young girl being raised in an evangelical home who must come to terms with her sexual attraction to other girls. In WHY BE HAPPY she describes her harrowing upbringing and search for fulfillment as a gay woman, revealing just how much she drew upon her own life in writing that masterful novel.
- Genre: Biography + Autobiography
- Subgenre: Personal Memoirs
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio
- Edition: Unabridged
- Language: English
- Format: audioCD
- Release Date: August 7, 2012
- Date Published: August 7, 2012
- Author: Jeanette Winterson