North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both

Summary (from the publisher): Sex, drugs, and . . . bug stew? In the vein of The Glass Castle and Wild, Cea Sunrise Person’s compelling memoir of a childhood spent with her dysfunctional counter-culture family in the Canadian wilderness—a searing story of physical, emotional, and psychological survival.

In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea’s family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren’t trying to build a new society—they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea’s grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.

Living out her grandparents’ dream with her teenage mother Michelle, young Cea knew little of the world beyond her forest. She spent her summers playing nude in the meadow and her winters snowshoeing behind the grandfather she idolized. Despite fierce storms, food shortages, and the occasional drug-and-sex-infused party for visitors, it seemed to be a mostly happy existence. For Michelle, however, now long separated from Cea’s father, there was one crucial element missing: a man. When Cea was five, Michelle took her on the road with a new boyfriend. As the trio set upon a series of ill-fated adventures, Cea began to question both her highly unusual world and the hedonistic woman at the centre of it—questions that eventually evolved into an all-consuming search for a more normal life. Finally, in her early teens, Cea realized she would have to make a choice as drastic as the one her grandparents once had in order to save herself.

While a successful international modeling career offered her a way out of the wilderness, Cea discovered that this new world was in its own way daunting and full of challenges. Containing twenty-four intimate black-and-white family photos, North of Normal is Cea’s funny, shocking, heartbreaking, and triumphant tale of self-discovery and acceptance, adversity, and strength that will leave no reader unmoved.
Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

North of Normal is Cea Sunrise Person's memoir of growing up in a very unconventional family. Cea was born to a teenage mother, whose family lived largely in the wilderness, trying to escape society and commercialism. As a child, Cea's family was very open about sex, nudity, drugs, bowel movements, and basically anything else that typical polite society would avoid a small child being exposed to. Of course, to Cea, eating bear meat, sleeping in a tipi, and seeing her mother having sex were all part of the norm. As Cea aged however, she became increasingly aware that she wasn't normal and longed to be part of a normal family and have stability and modern comforts (like running water and plumbing) that her family lacked. At just 13, she went to New York alone to become a model, and eventually became successful as a model on an international scale.

This memoir is very similar to other unconventional upbringing tales, like The Glass Castle. It leans heavily on shock value. Cea is left with strangers by her mother for days on end, involved in the growing and selling of drugs, is a witness to numerous breaking and entering's, and is sexually abused by one of her mother's boyfriends. As a five year old, Cea's mother explains birth control to her; "When we got to our tent, she brought me over to her bed and reached under her pillow, taking out a shallow plastic cup. 'I use this,' she said. 'It's called a diaphragm.' [...] And with that Mom pulled down her pants, squatted over the bed and stuck it up her crotch" (131).

I did think Person did a great job of not letting her adult perspective on her family color the way she portrayed them as a child. For example, as a little girl, Cea loved her grandfather and thought he was great, but as an adult she became jaded and bitter by his self-absorbed behavior. For instance, in one of the last scenes with her grandfather, she is taken aback when he asserts that no one in his family reads, although she reads quite a bit. In response, tells her, "My kids, I mean. You know, my real family. Let's face it - you were always a bit too...commercial to be a Person" (303). The hurt that Cea must feel towards her grandfather as an adult is totally absent from the way he is portrayed in the majority of the book when she's a little girl.

The last few chapters of this book sped up in time and glazed over the details of her modeling career and adult life. She barely talks about her first two marriages, and begins to express more and more anger and bitterness towards her family for her upbringing. In many ways, it seems as if this memoir is a catharsis for the author; a way of letting go of resentment she clearly feels towards her family and what she sees as neglect and lack of stability.

Although I enjoyed Cea's story, it is largely only enjoyable because her childhood is unusual and atypical. Although I absolutely felt that many aspects of Cea's childhood were reprehensible and faulted her family, it's also important to keep in mind while reading this that this is one version of events.

Stars: 3