Justin Kuritzkes--playwright, comedian, musical artist, and YouTube sensation--presents his first novel, a fresh and clever story in the guise of a celebrity memoir that probes the inner life of a mega famous pop star.

I’m beginning to think that it’s only when you live a life like mine that you realize that we’re all just tiny pieces of cosmic dust floating through the void until we disappear forever and we’re never heard from again.

I’m not saying that all famous people understand this. Definitely some of the worst, like, most horrible people I’ve ever met are famous people. But most of those people are only kind of famous, or even pretty famous, because for them, like, they’re still a part of the normal people world—they’ve still got a normal people mentality—but they just feel like they’re at the top of that world, you know? But the truly famous people, the like, insanely famous people—the kinds of people who have their faces on buses in countries they’ve never heard of—most of those people are pretty chill. We all understand that in a hundred years, even if our records are still available to stream online, even if our merchandise is still lining the shelves, even if our autobiographies are still bestsellers, we’re all gonna be gone, you know? And when you’re gone, you’re GONE. Life’s funny like that. LOL.

So begins the life story of an uber-famous twenty-two year old narrator. A teen idol since he was twelve, when a video of him singing the national anthem went viral, his star has only risen since. Now, haunted by the suicide of his manager-father in the wake of their painful parting, unsettled by the very different paths he and his his teenage love--and girl pop-star counterpart--“Mandy” have taken, and increasingly aware that he has signed on to something he has little control over, he begins to parse the divide that separates him from the “normal people” of the world, and enlighten the rest of us along the way.

Sneakily philosophical, earnest and funny, Normal People is a rollicking, unforgettable look at the clash between fame and the human condition, and what it really means to be “normal.”