The Girl Who Passed for Normal

by Hugh Fleetwood

In an isolated Roman villa, widowed English dancer Barbara Michaels serves as paid companion and tutor to twenty year-old Catherine, whose rich American mother thinks her 'mad.' In Barbara's eyes it's simply the case that Catherine is not 'all there', and dwells too much in the dysfunctional part of her own head. Barbara's sense of what is and is not 'normal', however, is about to be overturned.
First published in 1973, The Girl Who Passed for Normal was Hugh Fleetwood's second novel and the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for its year.
'Guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your chair.' New York Times
'Shocking... Horridly memorable.' San Francisco Chronicle

Genres: Horror, Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Hugh Fleetwood was born in England in 1944. At the age of 18 he went to live in France; at 21, he moved to Italy, where he remained for the next fourteen years. He had his first exhibition in 1970 at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto; in 1971 he published his first novel, A Painter of Flowers, for which he also designed the jacket, as he did for his second novel, The Girl Who Passed for Normal, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. His fifth novel, The Order of Death, was made into a film starring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon (Johnny Rotten). His most recent one-man show, at the Calvert Gallery in London, coincided with the reissue of six of his books by Faber & Faber’s Finds series. In 2012, he was cited in David Malcolm’s The British and Irish Short Story Handbook as a key figure in the development of the English short story; his most recent publication, “How the Story Ends”, will appear in the anthology Speak My Language in November 2015. Hugh Fleetwood currently lives in London.

-Valancourt Books

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange and disturbing short novel, in the best possible 70s way. It kind of evokes Walker Percy, in the way it turns on our responsibility for people who are less capable than us, and the way that the protagonist has some less obvious but still real limitations. A 30 year old woman is called in to care for a younger woman who has mental problems of a shifting character, and finds in that role a chance to make something new out of her life-- it's that kind of book, but with some evil bits mixed in.

But Fleetwood goes farther, or at least somewhere different, by including some characters that really are irredeemable. So, instead of being harmlessly incapable, Catherine isn't harmful at all, etc. There's a lurid, pulpy edge to the second half of this novel, when things swing from a moral exploration of what education and motherhood mean into some meaner business.

It's generally good, though I think at times protagonist Barbara might not have been interesting enough-- there are a lot of interior sections here, and sometimes those were a little repetitive and one got the impression Fleetwood was checking off a list of things to think about. But still, it was good, a quick read, and one that had a strange aura that will stick with me.

[Kressel Housman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horror with a female-dominant cast. Well-written plot and dialogue with gripping characters, but absolutely gruesome at the end.

[J]

Reads a bit like a '70s Italian giallo, a young woman living in Italy working as tutor/caregiver to a disabled girl returns home from visiting her mother to discover that her boyfriend David has disappeared. Did he simply leave her, or is there something more sinister going on? The disabled girl hints that her mother murdered him. But behind the girl's disabled exterior (she can sometimes "pass for normal") lies a dark secret.

[Aaron Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars
There's something incredibly awesome about most of the books written in the 70's. Maybe it's just me remembering the times, I don't know. But I love these retro books.
This one was very well written and suspenseful. Shocking at times, and one scene in particular that I will never forget.

[fiona gaunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Unusual storyline. All the characters were difficult to predict. Unsettling atmosphere. I could imagine the main character getting sucked into this particular vortex. Very nice details which kept the story grounded. Would make a fascinating film.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how to describe the story line. A little mystery suspense with some what disturbed characters. I found the book enjoyable.

[Angelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's that thing that male writers do where they write the woman's psyche as if she were a man. but other than that, this was a reasonably good book. about as subtle as a punch in the face, but good.

a young woman goes to italy to look after a "girl" with some kind of unnamed mental disability. people disappear, were they murdered or not? etc, etc.

[Lola · Rating 2 out of 5]

What's normal & what's abnormal? What's real & what's not? Different book than I'm used to reading. Supposedly to be or was made into a movie.