"By turns hilarious, wrenching, and achingly tender, this is a memoir about family that turns the whole idea of family upside down. Bilton writes beautifully, with sharp insight and a light touch, about her harrowing, astonishing journey into understanding her parents, her (very) extended family, and herself." —Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book
“Normal Family had me absolutely riveted from beginning to end. Chrysta Bilton has woven an impeccable narrative about the explosion of love, betrayal, and addiction—not to mention the menagerie of animals—that made up her madcap and calamitous childhood. The story is dominated by Bilton’s hedonistic, cult-inclined, womanizing, unstable and uncanny lesbian single mother, who had to make it up as she went along, and is surely one of the most mesmerizing ‘characters’ in recent memoir. Normal Family narrowly escapes being a tragedy, redeemed by Bilton’s compassionate storytelling and unwavering love for her untraditional family.”—Stephanie Danler, bestselling author of Stray and Sweetbitter
“I thought my family was complicated until I read Chrysta Bilton’s wonderful memoir about the unique—eccentric, wild, expansive—collection of irresistible characters in her life. Bilton has a big heart, gentle wisdom, keen eye and lovely wit. She’s a gifted writer with an astonishing story to tell.”—David Sheff, NYT bestselling author of Beautiful Boy
"Bilton's warts-and-all depiction is sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, always grounded in extraordinary forgiveness and resilience...A wholly absorbing page-turner that everyone will want to read. You should probably buy two." —Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Chrysta Bilton's astonishing, wildly unpredictable memoir NORMAL FAMILY starts out as rollicking and suspenseful and only ramps up from there, becoming by turns frightening, riotously funny, and finally quite moving.” —Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road
“It’s hard to put into words the many ways this book spoke to me. Normal Family reads like a thriller with its core mystery being the very meaning of life itself: vividly specific but also universal, with family as protagonist and antagonist, but always the hero.”—Ry Russo-Young, filmmaker (Nuclear Family)
"Eloquently written and compulsively readable, Bilton’s jaw-dropping coming-of-age memoir—and the love and survival found within its pages—is one readers won’t soon forget."—Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
"Every family is uniquely dysfunctional in its own way, but Bilton’s might take the cake. In her fascinating memoir, the author writes of her unconventional upbringing and discovering her father had sired dozens of children.”—USA TODAY, Best Books of Summer
“Bilton’s twisty life story is fascinating, and her eye for detail and ability to plumb her painful past for meaning make this a riveting debut.”—People Magazine
“This beautiful, warm, funny book is a testament to human resilience, forgiveness and humour. It is also a love letter to an extraordinary mother.”—Marianne Power, TIMES (UK)
“shines a much-needed light on the impact of the secretive, unregulated world of sperm donations…Bilton’s deeply human narratives so aptly convey[s]…no one should ever be in the dark about his or her own origins.”—Gabrielle Glaser, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“This remarkable and wise book is actually two memoirs, braided together with such tendresse that readers will come to believe the ironic title in earnest. Born via turkey baster to a lesbian mother with countless connections and even more schemes, Chrysta and her younger sister didn’t learn until decades later that their family secrets included one that would change everything, including their definition of ‘family.’” —Bethanne Patrick, LOS ANGELES TIMES
“It’s an extraordinary memoir about identity, family secrets, the nature of love and forgiveness, and resilience that’s alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking, redemptive and triumphant. I couldn’t stop turning the pages, and never stopped thinking about this story long after I finished.”—Aviva Loeb, WASHINGTON POST
“At age 23, the author learned that, owing to her estranged father’s prolific (and unregulated) sperm donations, she has at least 150 half-siblings — and that’s not even the most fascinating element of this memoir, which chronicles her bohemian upbringing in Los Angeles, floating between a hippie counterculture, rich private school kids, and even the occasional celebrity crew.”—Seija Rankin, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
★ 05/01/2022
"The story of how I came into this world didn't begin in a bedroom, or bar, or on a beach with two lovers holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes under a pink sky as they professed their mutual adoration," writes Bilton in her compelling debut memoir. Instead, her single, lesbian mother Debra, currently sober after "getting high on every drug, religion, and sexual experiment to come out of the 1960s and '70s" and longing to have a child, met beautiful hippie Jeffrey Harrison at a Beverly Hills hair salon, then paid him $2,000 for a sperm donation and a promise that he would "never do this for anyone else." Feeling ashamed for "not giving us a father in the "real" sense of the word," Debra paid Jeffrey to give her foot massages, sporadically visiting Chrysta, and to likewise father her sister Kaitlyn. He also visited the California Cryobank for a decade as Donor 150, a secret revealed years later along with the arrival of her 35 (and possibly hundreds more) siblings. VERDICT Eloquently written and compulsively readable, Bilton's jaw-dropping coming-of-age memoir--and the love and survival found within its pages--is one readers won't soon forget.—Denise Miller
★ 2022-03-10
An entertaining memoir about a uniquely dysfunctional family.
In her debut memoir, Bilton tells two remarkable stories. One is the chronicle of her wildly unconventional childhood as the daughter of a woman described by a friend, without much exaggeration, as "one of the great characters of the Western world." Growing up "in Beverly Hills in the 1950s in a high-society family—the prized granddaughter of a former governor of California…and the daughter of a prominent judge in Los Angeles,” Debra Olson was many things: an Eastern spiritualist; an out lesbian in homophobic times; a master saleswoman, making and losing millions in pyramid schemes; a friend of many celebrities; Ross Perot's "civil rights coordinator”; and a hedonist and sometime addict who yearned "to overdose on everything, especially life.” Though her daughters were by far the most important part of her life, the girls’ childhoods were marked by instability and loss, with both their father, Jeffrey, and many other second “mothers” coming and going on a regular basis. Bilton's warts-and-all depiction is sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, always grounded in extraordinary forgiveness and resilience. The second story is the tale of Donor 150, who was by far the most popular option for those purchasing sperm at the California Cryobank in Century City, recommended constantly by the nurses and the doctor who ran the place. In 2005, over a decade after his retirement from the sperm donation business, Jeffrey saw a headline on the front page of the New York Times: "HELLO, I’M YOUR SISTER. OUR FATHER IS DONOR 150." The author was a sophomore in college at the time, and it would be another two years before she became aware of the situation. By then, there were documentaries, magazine articles, a Facebook group, and ever more popular DNA testing. By that time, as she would soon learn, she was dating her own brother.
A wholly absorbing page-turner that everyone will want to read. You should probably buy two.
