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