Normal Family: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings

this was not at all what i was expecting to read; it was much more about her family growing up (and her mother and her...eccentricities) than it was about learning that your father was sperm donor to possibly hundreds of children and that you have a cadre of half-siblings. still, her childhood was so unstable - but full of love - and so interesting to hear her talk about. i feel like we usually hear stories about neglect and instability in that light, but the way her mother didn't know how to raise her and her sister, but still loved them so fully...maybe it's also how bilton writes with such compassion of the people who made her childhood hard. whatever it is, she's made this a very compelling read.

After a string of engrossing novels, I was ready to move on to nonfiction, maybe a memoir - and this one sounded fascinating...and was it ever! Chrysta Bilton, the author, is the daughter of a delightful, very eccentric but loving gay woman, Debra, who very much wanted to have children - and did, two, Chrysta and her sister Kaitlyn, by Jeffrey, her sperm donor, whom she met in a beauty salon in California (only in California!) one day and immediately asked him and paid him for a trip to the sperm bank to donate. They had a weird arrangement in which Debra did not hold or expect any responsible parenting from Jeffrey but paid him to show up for special occasions and be a good daddy to her girls, with lots of pictures, for a few hours. show more Jeffrey is obviously mentally ill, but in a sweet way fortunately. Since he couldn't hold down a job or make any money (though he came from a very wealthy family, they had given up completely on him - and they hadn't raised him very well, either), Jeffrey realized he could make money as a sperm donor and proceeded to do so, with thousands of donations for which he was paid over the years. Often homeless, he was never without an animal that he loved and protected. He had all kinds of delusions and believed all kinds of conspiracy theories, but stayed an odd but important component of Chrysta and Kaitlyn's lives. At the end of the book he was doing very well; from an inheritance from his mother, he could live well, with enough food and a nice car, stay clean, care for his beloved dog, and go to India (taking an Indian family with him!) with a permit to rescue street animals there. Debra too after wildly fluctuating between rags and riches, numerous girlfriends, jobs, stints of alcoholism and drugs, managed to get and stay sober by the end of the book, settling into happy grandmothering. She had always been resourceful, dedicated and loving to her girls, and optimistic, always trusting "the universe" to come through, no matter how dark things got...and "it" did.I wish Crysta, at least, had come to know the "universe"s name. But Chrysta turned out just fine. It was only late in the book that the sisters found they have many, many other siblings, 35 others, mostly sisters that they knew of, made contact with online (a Facebook page yet!) and had a reunion with a number of them. I found the book fascinating, could hardly put it down, and I'm glad I read it. A plus to me as a Barnard College graduate was that Chrysta and Kaitlyn were able to attend on scholarship and graduate with good grades. In all the chaos of their growing up years, their mother, by hook or crook had managed to get them into excellent private schools and provide them with good educations. show less

Chrysta is the oldest daughter of Debra, a sometimes-closeted lesbian who desperately wanted children, and Jeffrey, a man Debra met and convinced to be a sperm donor who occasionally shared in his children's lives.

Though much is made in the marketing of this book of that last piece of the subtitle, "my 35 siblings," the bulk of the book is not about that at all. It's about Chrysta's growing up in a unique situation, about her relationships with her mother, her father, and her full sister Kaitlyn. Her childhood was largely difficult and dysfunctional, and Chrysta could've made either or both of her parents the villain of the story, but she tells all of their stories with compassion and understanding. This memoir is absolutely wild, and I show more won't say too much about it because learning it as Chrysta reveals it is the best way to take it in. What a life she had, and what a strong woman she's become by the end. show less

This is more like 2.5 stars rounded up, because I feel like a jerk giving a low rating to someone's life story.

I heard about this book from NPR: Chrysta Bilton's biological father was first convinced to donate (sell) sperm by her lesbian mother, then went on to "donate" to a sperm bank many more times (despite having promised Chrysta's mother he wouldn't), fathering dozens of children (maybe hundreds, maybe thousands...no one really kept track). That in itself sounds like an interesting story. In fact, there's a 2010 documentary (Donor Unknown) about several of Chrysta's half-siblings meeting their father, "Donor 150," for the first time. By that point, he was essentially homeless and clearly struggling with mental illness.

But most of show more Normal Family is about Chrysta's dysfunctional childhood, dominated by her larger-than-life mother Debra: a former cult member, struggling with addiction, dragging her daughters along as she jumps from relationship to relationship, from deep depression to manic episodes, between mansions and near-homelessness as she makes money from pyramid schemes and selling real estate, repeatedly losing/spending it all. Her father makes occasional appearances, whenever her mother gives him money and gets him cleaned up.

Every up and down, so many minute details from her childhood, are covered, while other major events seem to be glossed over, especially if Debra wasn't involved. A lot of Chrysta's teen years just fly by. She goes into detail about a super dysfunctional high school relationship, including a terrifying incident that occurred the night before she left for college across the country, but then briefly mentions that she continued to see that same abusive boyfriend off and on through college. WHAT?!?! She alludes to many issues she had in college, but doesn't cover them in any depth, and brings up a story about breaking up with her first decent boyfriend, because she thought he might have been conceived with Donor 150's sperm, but never follows up with that at all.

Her relationships with her many half-siblings are basically a coda at the end. I was left wanting more. show less

I didn’t realize there would be so much name dropping or that the author’s family members had notable people in their lives and that even without the sperm donor shared father they could be well known. The author’s mother was particularly interesting in this regard.

Even before I started it I knew this book might be depressing for me. That was just when I knew about the family/multiple siblings. That was before reading about the privilege, which was immense, though interspersed with its opposite.

I am an only child and always wanted siblings. I would have been delighted to find half siblings the way the author has. I remember feeling disappointed but not surprised when I sent in my DNA and found out that my parents really were my show more biological parents. It would have been lovely to find another family to which I belonged.

The book is mostly about the author’s growing up years in a dysfunctional family. The half siblings come into the picture well into the book and were not the main part of the story.

This account was head spinning. The author, her sister and especially her mother experienced so many lifestyles, relationships and life experiences. The level of privilege was insane. The level of chaos was insane. The amount of lying and of hiding the truth was insane. The life challenges were insane.

Two things fascinated me the most: The author’s mother was one. She’s an interesting and memorable person. I found her aggravating but at times also (sort of) endearing. Mostly annoying though. The other was the nature/nurture argument about which I’ve always been interested. Here there is a compelling argument for nature/genetics having a huge influence on people.

Except for the cover there were no photos in the Kindle eBook edition so I went looking for some and some more perspectives.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/13/my-dad-is-sperm-donor-150-what-its-like-meeting-yo...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/21/sperm-donor-joellen-marsh-f...

https://wamu.org/story/22/07/14/this-authors-normal-family-includes-a-sperm-dono...

and I guess there is a related film

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/donor-unknown/

I wasn’t really in the mood to read this book but it was a page-turner for me and got me past over a month of not reading books. I delighted in reading even though for me it was a painful read and I’m not sure how “great” it was. It worked for me though. Knowing or knowing of a lot the places in Los Angeles mentioned probably increased my enjoyment as did identifying just a bit with some of the author’s experiences.

Even though I found it to be a painful read I did enjoy it very much.

I wonder if the hardcover/paper edition has photos. This is the sort of book where I want to see lots of photographs! I was disappointed that there weren’t any. show less

this was unputdownable. the writing was simple, but i think Chrysta Bilton did a great job telling her stroy. i sped through this because i was so engrossed by Chrysta and her story that i could not put it down. i'd be interested in hearing what her sister Kaitlyn thinks about her writing a book about their childhood and all these new siblings considering Kaitlyn wanted nothing to do with this part of the family tree

A fascinating look at a life completely unlike my own. Much more a biography of the author than the story of the siblings. Might be good for those who liked Glass Castle. The author does a good job reading this.