Normal

Author is a fiction finalist for the National Book Award A brilliant book on a fascinating, provocative subject "Amy Bloom is possessed of great subtlety and rock-solid integrity She is a compassionate writer who, more importantly, loves the world too much to sentimentalize it." - Michael Cunningham

Explores sex and gender through portraits of people who are widely considered not normal - transsexuals, crossdressers, hermaphrodites - a group of people larger and more 'normal' than most of us would imagine. This work presents us with a portrait that reinvents the idea of sex, gender, and identity, and the very concept of being 'normal'.Journalist, psychotherapist and novelist Amy Bloom explores sex and gender through portraits of people who are widely considered not normal - transsexuals, crossdressers, hermaphrodites - a group of people larger and more 'normal' than most of us would imagine. There are men like Hale, a 'regular, middle-of-the-road, white-bread guy' with a wife, kids, and a medical condition, the standard treatment for which would have changed his life and his gender. Mothers like Jessie, who realised that her little girl was in fact a boy and used her life savings to help him make the transgender transition. And couples like Peggy and her husband, 'Melanie', who holiday on cruise ships along with fellow heterosexual crossdressers. Bloom cuts through the psychology by showing us these people as they really are and in their own words. This intimate portrait reinvents the idea of sex, gender, and identity, and the very concept of being 'normal'.