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November 2000

Like Normal People ****

Karen E.Bender scores with her uplifting look at mental retardation

Most mothers dream, at least secretly, that their children might grow up to lead fabulous, extraordinary lives. Ella, the mother in Karen E. Bender’s outstanding debut novel Like Normal People, must learn early to bid farewell to high-flying dreams. When newlyweds Ella and Lou arrive in California in the 1920s, their modest aspirations — owning a small house and a shop — seem bold. Soon Ella gives birth to a daughter, naming her Lena after film star Marlene Dietrich. Initially, the seemingly endless possibilities for Lena’s bright future exhilarate Ella — her daughter might become a glamorous actress, a gourmet chef or fluent in French. Such dreams are shattered when the three-year-old with the “smile of a baby seal” is diagnosed with mild mental retardation. “The world broke apart — softly and too fast,” writes Bender. Yet Ella gathers the pieces and is determined to enable her daughter to live, as the title of the book suggests, like normal people. With extraordinary tenderness and sensitivity, Bender chronicles this difficult journey, from trying to teach the little girl how to hold a cup to letting go when she falls in love and marries Bob, a mentally handicapped man. The reader cannot help but smile at some of Ella’s efforts to prepare her daughter for a “normal” life, such as enrolling her in the Wilshire Charm School. Here, nervous parents march up and down “like generals guarding dictators of small, important lands,” as their children learn to apply make-up and respond to dinner invitations (“yes, no, or I have to check my calendar”).
Like Normal People is not only the story of this extraordinary mother-daughter relationship. The novel also introduces Lena’s graceful younger sister Vivien, a dance instructor. “Ella had two daughters,” writes Bender, “two comets, each producing her own fierce light. Ella felt herself become a planet both grand and dim, living in their gauzy play of shadow and light.” And finally, there is Vivien’s daughter Shelley, an awkward girl who feels that she does not fit in, and develops a special bond with her aunt. Ultimately, Lena and Shelley run away from home, and Ella sets out to find them. The author follows the lives of these women, weaving them together into the portrait of a remarkable family. With incredible ease, Bender alternates between past and present and among the viewpoints of Ella, Lena and Shelley. Her gift for pointing out life’s hidden beauty becomes apparent when she lets us see the world through Lena’s eyes. In her precise, at times lyrical prose, she can make palpable the thrill of hiding under a pier at the beach or the adventure of getting on a bus without knowing its destination. With a cast of admirable, yet utterly believable characters, Like Normal People is a moving tale of one family’s special bond and their hopes in the face of adversity.

Like Normal People
by Karen E. Bender
Houghton Mifflin 2000