North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person

If any book will put you off the hippy lifestyle – this is it. Describing this memoir as compelling feels like an understatement. It reads like an effortless retelling of childhood from a child’s point of view, but the simple style and beautiful backdrop of Canada’s wilderness only makes the disturbing nature of events stand out so much starker.

Cea Sunrise Person was born into a family that lived out the ethos of the 1960s counterculture to the extreme. Her grandparents never set boundaries for their four children and their chaotic life was filled with sex, drugs and a back-to-nature survivalism. Cea’s mother was only sixteen when she fell pregnant and marriage with Cea’s father only lasted a brief few months.

As family life began to splinter, Cea’s grandfather decided to move them all to a lifestyle of self-sufficiency in the remote regions of Canada. 18-month-old Cea went to live with her grandparents, mother, and two aunts in a home sewn tepee with not much more than a few pots and pans. Trapping and killing their own food, the lifestyle provided Cea with complete freedom, but this did not last.

When she was five, her mother met a man who took them away from their extended family into a new type of life, but not for the better. Eventually, Cea managed to find a way out of this precarious existence by becoming an international model at the age of fourteen. This is an incredible tale – sad, sweet, uplifting, and heartbreaking – I couldn’t put it down. It takes a long time to heal from such a journey, but Cea seems to have got there. The last few chapters finish with the insight and perspective of an adult.  One of my must-reads of the year!

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link:  North of Normal