The Girl Who Passed for Normal

(Paperback, Main)

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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

Author Bio

Hugh Fleetwood was born in Chichester, Sussex, in 1944. Aged 21 he moved to Italy and lived there for fourteen years, during which time he exhibited his paintings and wrote a number of novels and story collections, originally published by Hamish Hamilton, beginning with A Painter of Flowers (1972). His second novel, The Girl Who Passed for Normal (1973), won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. His fifth, The Order of Death (1977), was adapted into a 1983 film starring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon. In 1978 he published his first collection of short stories, The Beast. Subsequent collections have included Fictional Lives (1980) and The Man Who Went Down With His Ship (1988). He currently lives in London, and continues to work both as writer and painter.