Normal Family

By Chrysta Bilton

Back Bay    2022

272 pages     Memoir

The subtitle, “On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings” created some anxiety in me. I had just watched a documentary called Taken at Birth about Dr. Thomas Hicks, who sold over 200 babies from his clinic in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s. I worried that this might be a similar story, but Normal Family has a totally different perspective and is a first-person account of Chrysta Bilton’s life as the daughter of a single gay woman and a paid sperm donor.

Bilton’s mother is quite a character, and Chyrsta and her sister Kaitlyn had a very unstable childhood. Debra, their mother, wanted more than anything for joy in their lives, but because of alcohol, drugs, and an off-and-on career, she was pretty much unable to provide what the girls needed. Jeffrey, their father, shows up whenever Debra pays him to come over, but what they don’t know is that he is regularly donating sperm to a fertility clinic, resulting in more than 35 half-siblings.

As the girls grow up, they come to understand their mother better and see less of their father, who has his own demons. Jeffrey, on the other hand, is beginning to realize that the other children of his sperm may want to know him and starts to reach out as Donor 150. This realization came as a result of a New York Times article about sperm donors and Donor 150. In his own way, he was proud of Chrysta and Kaitlyn, and wanted his other children to know him as well.

Bilton tells this story in such an delightful way that the reader is totally engaged with her life story, the trials she and her sister experienced, and the strength that guided them through to adulthood. At one point, Bilton even tells about how she was dating a guy, who turned out to be her brother. The Kirkus reviewer says, “Bilton’s warts-and-all depiction is sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, always grounded in extraordinary forgiveness and resilience.”

Of course, this happened in the early days of sperm donation and sperm purchase. Now, DNA and ancestry websites help people find their relatives. Chrysta tells about how several of her siblings met each other, in part because of the urging of her husband, who felt that Chrysta needed to have that closure in her life. The meetup made her sister, Kaitlyn, very uncomfortable, and she only stayed for a short time. On the other hand, the meetup helped finish Chrysta's journey.

I have an acquaintance whose son was the sperm donor for a lesbian couple, and they had a beautiful little girl. Right away, the couple  asked my friend if she would fill the role of grandma to the little girl. My friend was thrilled because she doesn’t have any other grandchildren. The little group meets several times a year, and my friend and her granddaughter Zoom with each other frequently. I certainly recommended Normal Family to her. Actually, I would like to recommend it to anyone who likes memoirs. It is fascinating and a “wholly absorbing page turner.” And you thought your childhood was crazy!!!

Chrysta Bilton’s website

Holy Food

 By Christina Ward

Feral House     2023

368 pages     History/Cookbook

The subtitle for Holy Food reads: How cults, communes, and religious movements influenced what we eat.

And here is a summary from the publisher: “Religious beliefs have been the source of food "rules" since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said "no"). A long-ago Pope forbade Catholics from eating meat on Fridays (fasting to atone for committed sins). Rules about eating are present in nearly every American belief, from high-control groups that ban everything except air to the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s. Only in the United States—where the freedom to worship the God of your choice and sometimes of your own making—could people embrace new ideas about religion. It is in this over-stirred pot of liberation, revolution, and mysticism that we discover God cares about what you put in your mouth.”

Until I looked over Holy Food, I really had not considered the food implications of religious movements and cults. I knew that we could get a really good meal in Amish Shipshewana, Indiana, and that cereal came from religious Dr. Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, but I had never looked very deeply into the topic. Christina Ward truly has done an incredible job of delving into the topic of food and religion in the United States. One reviewer says, “As Ward demonstrates, by no means were all relationships wacky, coercive, or deceptive. But the centrality of food to people’s lives meant that again and again—especially in a country that was inventing itself repeatedly over centuries—new ideas about religion came with new ideas about eating and drinking.’

Of particular interest to me was the section on The Lost Tribes of Israel that included the group called the House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. When I first moved to Southwest Michigan, we visited the House of David several times. In the early 1900s the cult had created a resort near Lake Michigan that included an amusement park. Because of their vegetarian and kosher background, the resort created an atmosphere that was comfortable for the many vacationing Jewish people from the Chicago area. By the time we got there in the mid-1960s, the House of David was in its last days. Only a few practitioners were left and the amusement park and restaurants were closed. We walked the grounds and imagined what it must have been like in its heyday. Oh, and I do have to say that when my father was a teenager in southern Minnesota, he played a baseball game against the famous House of David baseball team.

I also enjoyed the section about the Kellogg sanitarium in Battle Creek, our neighboring community, and about how Dr. Kellogg created cereal as a way to clean out the bowels. The Seventh Day Adventists, of which Kellogg was a member, is a very strong denomination in Southwest Michigan, in part because of Kellogg’s notoriety. Berrien Springs MI, in the southwest corner of the state, is the headquarters for the Seventh Day Adventists, and they have one of the very best vegetarian grocery stores I have ever been to.

Ward includes lots of very interesting recipes from the many denominations, cults, and cultures. “It is a fascinating exploration of the American soul and table” By the way, there is even a recipe for Funeral Potatoes.

The publisher sent me this amazing book, and I discovered that I had another book by Christina Ward on my Kindle, American Advertising Cookbooks. I've got to look at that book next. 

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult

 By Maria Bamford

Gallery     2023

288 pages     Memoir

It was the title Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult that really caught my attention when the advanced readers copy was offered to me by the publisher. I had been going down a cult rabbit hole with books and TV shows, and I thought Bamford’s book would fit right in.

First, I am sorry to say that I had no idea who the author was because of my lack of familiarity with stand-up comedy. I also had no idea what her interpretation of the word “cult” would be, but I dove into the book and read and laughed my way through it. The book hit home with me on many levels.

I loved her understanding of cults. I had never looked at cults the way she did. She used the term to describe Overeaters Anonymous and other 12-step programs, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and even to describe Suzuki violin training. Once she described these programs, I bought into her idea that these are very cult-like although non-religious operations. I completely understood her predilection for joining these organizations to help her out of whatever mental state she was in—and at the same time to participate in something, even when she’s not very good at it.

The Washington Post reviewer says that the book becomes a “portal directly into Bamford’s mind.” The review also suggests that there is an “authenticity to her words that elevates them into something beyond the category of comedy memoir.” The reader is able to identify with her even as we are laughing at her pain and misfortune—because of the very clever way she presents her life to the reader. Each chapter closes with a crazy recipe (not real recipes), and I found myself looking forward to these recipes because they tied the entire chapter together.

I particularly appreciated her honesty about her mental health issues—even though they are told with self-deprecating humor. She mentions in the introduction: “I do not know what I’m talking about. And full disclaimer: cults, books, books about cults, and comedy are no replacement for meds. Medicine is the best medicine.”

I listened to the first third of the book on a car trip and then read the rest on my Kindle. I recommend that you listen if you can. The audio version of the book is extremely funny because it is read by the author, and she has a quirky and wonderful way of emphasizing words, sentences, and even whole paragraphs that makes listening a fantastic experience.

I watched several YouTube videos of Bamford’s comedy and a couple episodes of her Netflix series, Lady Dynamite. So, I was really surprised when I read that she had grown up in Duluth, Minnesota, my hometown. She had even gone to the same elementary school my siblings and I had attended. More than that, her mother had belonged to the same women’s organization that my mother had belonged to and her father had been active in the community theater—just like my dad.

More of the Washington Post review: “Some of her misadventures—among them, being committed to a psych ward and accidentally killing a beloved pug — feel like anything but laughing matters. But it’s a testament to Bamford that she’s able to fill these pages with stories that are relatable and consistently hilarious, even when they’re harrowing … This material, and the quirks of its presentation, make the memoir feel like a 270-some-page portal directly into Bamford’s mind. That notion would probably be terrifying to Bamford, who worries frequently on the page that she may be coming across as a massive narcissist. But there’s an authenticity to her words that elevates them into something beyond the category of comedy memoir.”

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