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    Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
    Unavailable
    Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
    Unavailable
    Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
    Audiobook6 hours

    Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality

    Written by John Schwartz

    Narrated by John Schwartz and Joseph Schwartz

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Three years ago, John Schwartz, a national correspondent for The New York Times, got the call that every parent hopes never to receive: His thirteen-year-old son, Joe, was in the hospital following a suicide attempt. Mustering the courage to come out to his classmates, Joe had delivered a tirade about homophobic and sexist attitudes that was greeted with unease and confusion by his fellow students. Hours later, he took an overdose of pills.

    After a couple of weeks in the hospital and in the locked ward of a psychiatric treatment center, Joe returned to his family. As he recovered, his parents were dismayed by his school's inability to address-or reluctance to deal with-Joe's needs. Determined to help their son feel more comfortable in his own skin, Schwartz and his wife, Jeanne, launched their own search for services and groups that could help Joe know he wasn't alone.

    In Oddly Normal, Schwartz writes of his family's struggles within a culture that is changing fast-but not fast enough. Interweaving his narrative with contextual chapters on psychology, law, and common questions, Schwartz shares crucial lessons about helping gay kids learn how to cope in a potentially hostile world. From buying rhinestone-studded toddler shoes to creating a "Joseph manual" for Joe's teachers; from finding a hairdresser who stocks purple dye to fighting erroneous personality disorder diagnoses, Oddly Normal offers a deeply personal look into one boy's growing up.

    Joe, far happier today than he was three years ago, collaborated on this work.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateNov 8, 2012
    ISBN9781469257150
    Unavailable
    Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
    Author

    John Schwartz

    Schwartz’s first novel In The Shadow of Babylon rose to the top of Amazon Kindle's Action/Adventure list. KIRKUS Review wrote... “an epoch-spanning thriller. The prose is something to behold... the author deftly weaves the romantic experiences of a pre-historical shepherd into an extended homily in the best page-turner fashion... evocative... lyrical, mystical and shocking... A wonderfully written, provocative novel."John has lived and worked in the USA, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Fiji. He was one of the first American businessmen to enter China after the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1990’s John and his family established a successful English/Chinese language publishing company based in Hong Kong.John’s poetry placed first in the 71st Annual Writers Digest National Writing Competition (2002). His winning eleven-line poem was not about love, broken hearts, or death... it was about a skyscraper in Hong Kong. Robert Pinsky (U.S. Poet Laureate 1997-2000) called John’s writing “... vivid ... gritty ... vigorous.”John will tell you he has lived well, loved often, cried frequently, hated little, cherished the present, ignored regrets, and often lost sight of the desitnation while relishing the trip.Do what they manhood bids thee do,from none but self expect applause.He noblest lives and noblest dieswho makes and keeps his self-made laws.— Richard Francis Burton

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    Reviews for Oddly Normal

    3.5/5

    49 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Simply put, this book tells us how these clearly amazing parents tried desperately to help their son and understand him. A model of what parents should be: an advocate for their children!I was immensely moved, humbled and humored by this book. A great read all around and so informative! The authors journalistic background definitely shines as he divulges facts and reports and statistics! This is not a book based on bias. It's a book based on love, and backed up with research. For any parent struggling to understand or accept their child or some part, read this book!
    • 4/5
      Hard to describe why, but this just wasn't as interesting as it could have been.
    • 3/5
      Interesting story of empathic parents helping a not-well-adjusted child come to terms with his homosexuality. Too much detail about things that didn't add to the story. While the parents were terribly concerned about their child, it seems to me they expected too much for the school to provide. The school did have a psychologist on staff which I find outrageous. In these days of inadequate funding for big city schools that this elite suburban public school should provide such services at a big expense is somewhat inappropriate.
    • 3/5
      Mixed feelings about this one. I wanted less of the father and more of the queer kid's experience, especially since the father, though very well-meaning, lapsed into straight/entitled cluelessness too often for my comfort. Maybe someday the kid will write a thinly-veiled autobiographical novel. That I would like to read.
    • 4/5
      A remarkably candid memoir of a parent's experience as they assist thier son as he comes out and faces the challenges of a largely intolerant and unprepared school system. Chapters alternate with personal stories and accounts of the laws, advances in psychology, etc.
    • 2/5
      I'll be honest, I found it really hard to get to this book. it felt like more the article then a memoir. I read half of it and had to force myself just out of what I thought was obligation even finish the book. I got the impression that this was more about the family struggle coming to terms with their teens sexuality, rather than ever really dealing with their struggle to help him come to terms. that's partly the fact that it took me so long to finish this book
    • 5/5
      "'You have to come home,' Jeanne said on the phone. Her voice was urgent, shaking. 'Joe has taken a lot of pills.'" So begins Oddly Normal, a memoir by The New York Times correspondent John Schwartz about his son Joe. Jeanne and John knew from an early age that their youngest son was gay, but what does that mean to a child at 4 or 6 or even 10? Schwartz does a brilliant job intertwining their journey and Joe's story with studies and information about homosexuality and various disabilities, historic and current. Joe was an exceptionally bright yet challenged child. He could read at a very young age, but couldn't tie his shoes and struggled to do the athletic things that boys of his age could do, preferring Barbies, beads, bangles and jeweled wizard castles. John and his wife formed their own support group of gay "uncles" who advised them on how to handle Joseph's coming out, at the same time the schools told them what they though his disability was and how he should best be handled.This is a book that could be easily devoured as it is so well written. I chose to savor it a chapter at a time, really thinking about what Schwartz had to say and how this spoke to me, particularly as a teacher and as a parent of a special needs son. It's an honest story - the author owns his mistakes and shares the family's and Joseph's triumphs. In the end, it encouraged me to accept the unusual child, all children really, but especially those who walk a unique path. This is a great addition to my library's multicultural, GLBTQ and memoir collections. It would make a great book club selection as well.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't sure what to expect when I requested this book. There are a lot of books out there now about struggling with homosexuality. Schwartz's book however hit the right spots. There are a lot of important questions brought up in the book and well written answers given to them. And having the information on the studies interspersed with the narration of Schwartz's family broke it up enough that the book didn't drag with too many facts piled next to each other. Joseph's struggle could be considered relatively mild, however as a reader I found myself investing in Joseph anyways. The writing style is great and the story is one everyone should read.
    • 5/5
      "Oddly Normal" is a very fitting title for this book! Part memoir, part journalistic reflection on statistics and studies, John Schwartz takes the reader through his family's journey with their youngest son, Joe. It happens that Joe is both gay and what his father refers to as "squirrely", a description of his learning and social challenges. I was taken with the narrative -- Joe is a wonderful boy and this reader rooted for him from the author's first descriptions of his toddlerhood and his parents' initial thoughts that Joe might be a gay child. The Schwartz's love their son and try to find ways to help him through school struggles and identity issues. They obtain support from a network of supportive friends and professionals...but when Joe finally decides to "come out" at school, his peers' reactions drive him to attempt suicide.It may sound as though this memoir is dark... it is not. There are periods in Joe's school / life struggles that are dark and depressing, but overall this memoir is a story of a family who LOVES their child unconditionally and goes to great lengths to advocate for him.I must also point out that the scientific / journalist chapters are a great addition to what otherwise might be labeled as just-another-memoir. John Schwartz has done his research! He includes the latest studies in a way that is meaningful to the reader -- not boring in the least.The final chapter is written by Joe himself. It is a story he wrote and drew as a part of a creative writing course. It brought tears to my eyes.I would recommend "Oddly Normal" for all readers. If you have ever loved someone who is gay, learning disabled, socially challenged, or just plain awkward ('squirrely') you will identify with the Schwartz family journey. In short, I LOVED this book!
    • 5/5
      Inspiring in an understated way, Oddly Normal is as affecting as any memoir I've read. Schwartz's journalistic credentials serve the book well as he relates the highly personal story of how he, his wife, and his son Joseph managed the confusing issues of Joseph's childhood: how they came to realize Joseph was gay long before he came out to them, how they advocated for him in schools that weren't homophobic but didn't quite know what to do with the problems presented by this "squirrelly" kid, how to give Joseph all the love and support they could while still letting him come to his own sense of self. No parents of a gay child will have an experience like the Schwartzes' in every particular, and if they had it to do over there are things they would change, but Schwartz was motivated to write the book to inform other parents whose children struggle with their difference. I would further recommend it for anyone touched by an LGBT person, anyone touched by mental illness, or anyone interested in a window to these human experiences. Schwartz intersperses the story with broader context about the science and politics behind the issue, conveyed clearly and objectively. Knowing that Joseph is still in school makes the Schwartzes' experience all the more topical, and I wish them the very best.