The Normals

Download the reading guide for this book here In this critically acclaimed comic masterpiece, David Gilbert tells the story of Billy Schine, a young man who innocently enrolls in a 14-day human drug testing study and finds his normal world turned upside-down. Like a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the postmodern age, The Normals is a tour de force from a writer of astonishing intelligence and imagination. «Much of [The Normals] antic humor derives from Gilbert's unerring grasp of America's varied forms of self-medication. But what makes this first novel memorable is its exploration of the contradictory desire both to escape the world and to be plunged back into it.»-New Yorker«Wild and woolly…a trenchant study of human suggestibility, tricked out with a wry subplot about the media hoopla surrounding a brain-tumor victim whose latest MRI bears a striking resemblance to the Shroud of Turin.»-Seattle Times«T.C. Boyle meets Alice Sebold with a bit of Paul Theroux…Gilbert uses sharp humor to tackle serious issues such as the search for self, love, and medical ethos. This is a novel that resonates long after you turn the last page.»-Rocky Mountain News"[A] must buy…[an] intelligent and funny dissection of our ADD-addled culture."-Maxim (four stars) «A writer of loopy elegance…[Gilbert] is able to refract our world back to us in ways that words on the page can best convey.»-Boston GlobeAlso available: HC 1–58234–456–6 ISBN 13: 978–158234–456- $24.95