Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

In her LGBT memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal (2011), Jeanette Winterson describes her troubled childhood and urges readers to consider what it means to belong somewhere. The book won the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography and received various other award nominations. Winterson is an English author who grew up in a strict Pentecostal Evangelist household. Her upbringing informs much of her writing. Before writing full-time, Winterson worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press. When she isn’t writing books, she’s working on newspaper and magazine columns.

There is nothing easy about Winterson’s childhood. Enduring years of emotional and sometimes physical abuse, she was made to feel ashamed of her sexual identity. It wasn’t until adulthood that Winterson came to terms with her upbringing and felt able to talk about it. She hopes that her memoir inspires other people to escape abusive environments to find somewhere they truly belong.

Winterson describes growing up in Accrington, a small, working-class town in northern England which relies heavily on industry. Winterson has no recollection of who her birth parents are; when she is just six months old, she is adopted by a couple who can’t have children of their own. To outsiders, Mr. and Mrs. Winterson seem like a great couple, because they are religious and morally observant. The reality, however, is quite different.



Mr. and Mrs. Winterson, a devout Pentecostal Evangelist Christian couple, take their religion to extremes. As Winterson grows up, their attitude towards her turns violent and unpredictable. They think their daughter is evil. They believe that she is either the Devil’s child or that she has been sent by the Devil to challenge them.

Winterson describes how her adoptive parents punish her for failing to live up to their expectations. Mrs. Winterson picks on her daughter regularly, telling her that she is a disappointment. Her mother wishes they had picked a different baby at the adoption center. Winterson admits that growing up in such an environment was painful and emotionally draining, because nothing she did was ever good enough.

To make matters worse, Winterson’s parents physically abuse her. Mrs. Winterson decides that her daughter isn’t just the Devil’s child but that she is possessed by the Devil himself. Both parents hit her, hoping to knock the Devil out of her. When physical violence doesn’t work, they lock her in dark, isolated rooms for hours on end, and they won’t let her have any friends. They worry that she will contaminate other children.



Winterson describes growing up feeling lonely, scared, and despondent. Her only joy in life is reading books. Books teach her about how the world can be, giving her hope for the future. For Winterson, books make the difference between surviving childhood and giving up. They inspired her later passion for writing stories of her own.

Everything gets worse for Winterson when she turns fifteen. She suspects that she doesn’t fancy boys because she has never felt attracted to anyone at school. She thinks that she might be a lesbian, although she knows that her parents will condemn her for it. One day, Winterson meets Helen, a girl at church. Helen is beautiful, smart, and kind, and Winterson falls in love with her. Although Helen returns her feelings, Winterson knows she can’t act on them. Not while her parents are around.

Winterson describes spending weeks and months toiling over her feelings for Helen. She finally gives in and they see each other in secret. Before long, Winterson’s parents find out; they decide that if they don’t save their daughter from the Devil’s influence, she will go to Hell. They arrange for the local pastor to perform an exorcism.



Winterson endures the humiliation of the exorcism, but it doesn’t help. Although she stops seeing Helen, she falls for a girl at school. Unable to change who she is, she realizes that there is nothing demonic about her. Her parents who are to blame for making Winterson feel so horrible for all those years.

When Winterson turns sixteen, she tells her parents that she is a lesbian and she won’t apologize for it. She has done nothing wrong. Unsurprisingly, her parents kick her out of the house, and she spends weeks living in her car. On one hand, this is a low moment for Winterson, but on the other hand, she has never felt so free.

Mrs. Ratlow, Winterson’s English teacher, encourages her to pursue English. Together, they work on Winterson’s academic scores in the hope of securing her a place at Oxford University. When Winterson graduates from Oxford, she knows that she couldn’t have done it without Mrs. Ratlow’s help. Mrs. Ratlow is the first adult who ever showed faith in her.



Winterson admits that she attempted suicide as an adult because the weight of the pain she carried around with her finally became too much. When she survived the attempt, she recognized that this was her opportunity to let go of the past and move forward into a brighter future. Although she will never forget the suffering she endured, she did not let it destroy her.