Дженет Уинтерсон «Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal»

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WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU

COULD BE NORMAL?

ALSO BY JEANETTE WINTERSON

Fiction

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

The Passion

Sexing the Cherry

Written on the Body

Art & Lies

Gut Symmetries

The World and Other Places

The Powerbook

Lighthousekeeping

Weight

The Stone Gods

Nonfiction

Art Objects

Comic Book

Boating for Beginners

Children's Books

Tanglewreck

The King of Capri

The Battle of the Sun

The Lion, the Unicorn and Me

Screenplays

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC TV)

Ingenious (BBC TV)

Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy

When You Could

Be Normal?

Grove Press

New York

Copyright © 2011 by Jeanette Winterson

‘Burnt Norton’ from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. Reproduced by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. ’The Rowing Endeth’ from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton by Anne Sexton (Houghton Mifflin, 1981) ©Anne Sexton, reprinted by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic Inc.

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Jonathan Cape,

The Random House Group, London

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

ISBN—13: 9780802194756

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

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To my three mothers:

Constance Winterson

Ruth Rendell

Ann S.

Acknowledgments

With love and thanks to Susie Orbach

Thanks as well to Paul Shearer who traced the family tree.

To Beeban Kidron's helpline! To Vicky Licorish and

the kids: my family.

To all my friends who stood by me.

To Caroline Michel — fantastic agent and fabulous friend.

Everyone at Grove for backing this book: Morgan Entrekin,

Elisabeth Schmitz, Deb Seager and Jodie Hockensmith.

And to Heather Schroder at ICM and to AM Homes.

Contents

  Chapter 1 The Wrong Crib

  Chapter 2 My Advice to Anybody Is: Get Born

  Chapter 3 In The Beginning Was The Word

  Chapter 4 The Trouble With A Book . . .

  Chapter 5 At Home

  Chapter 6 Church

  Chapter 7 Accrington

  Chapter 8 The Apocalypse

  Chapter 9 English Literature A—Z

  Chapter 10 This Is The Road

  Chapter 11 Art and Lies

Intermission

  Chapter 12 The Night Sea Voyage

  Chapter 13 This Appointment Takes Place In The Past

  Chapter 14 Strange Meeting

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