Memoir Book Club: North of Normal, by Cea Sunrise Person

Freedom. It was this word that jarred my mother from her trance. She knew it was something she wouldn’t be able to live without, and she silently said as much to the serpent. It nodded, satisfied, and flicked its tongue one last time. Now, it said to her, pick up your baby. Mom shook her head to clear it, and her ears slowly tuned in to the sound of my cries,. When she looked back at the mirror, the snake was gone. — Cea Sunrise Person, Ch. 3, p.25

Join a group of enthusiastic readers to discuss great memoirs of relevance to education! Our first book is North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both (New York, NY: Harper, 2014) by former model Cea Sunrise Person who experienced a highly rustic and unconventional upbringing and embarked on a journey of self discovery and acceptance to find her own family.

“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.”

— Publisher’s description.

Fall Memoir Book Club is co-sponsored by GSLD Student Success and meets once a month. The first 10 students to register will get a free copy of the book.

Where: 242 Horace Mann