Mother once told me, "Every life is a series of stories, and most lives are hundreds of stories tall. It's impossible to read them all, and it's often difficult to distinguish between the fiction and the non-fiction chapters in each one. So, the only way to get to really know someone is through the Reader's Digest version, one issue at a time." The point is, there are hundreds of stories behind the story I'm about to tell you, and every character is an anthology unto themselves. If you have followed their stories before, you are aware of their back issues. If not, I trust that there is enough of the Reader's Digest version that follows to give you enough gist for the mill.

This is a story so real, and yet so magical, that you might well think it's fiction. But only those who don't believe in magic will find it so. For the rest of us, the only difference between a literary life, and a physical life, is that a literary life lasts forever.

As Mother says, "The Circle of Life is just one big learning curve." NORMAL CURVE? takes us along the Poole-Hall extended family's passage through countless twists and turns, and around a few curves that are anything but normal ... but then again, I'm sure that's what you've been expecting.

As he did in the previous two books in this series, NORMAL? and NORMAL TOO?, our narrator, Gene Poole-Hall takes us on a journey that is so real, so extraordinarily full of love, humor, and magic, you may well find yourself wanting to become a member of this fictional family, where you too will live forever. If that doesn't sound normal, welcome to the family.