"South of Normal" By Norm Schriever

· Print Length: 344 pages
· Publisher: Authority Publishing (April 19, 2013)

When I move to Mexico or even more south, I want to have read all I can about what it’s like to live there.

In “South of Normal” Norm Schriever invites us, to experience Tamarindo, Costa Rico. He doesn’t live in the resort towns, but a true, native, surfer town before the developers come in. Sounds a little like Sayulita in Mexico. Schriever introduces us, with love and humor, to the people who make this paradise home. These are the people that provide the services, scramble for work, party and hookup. They struggle, day to day, to provide for themselves and their families, yet, love where they live.

Schriever shares some of the reasons we want to move south:
· “Some people come south to die.”
· “Some come south to save their lives, to rekindle their joy in the sunlight that sets them on fire every dawn…”
· “Some come south to escape the frozen winters…”
· “Some come south to simply be…”

I read of many expats that simply want more from life than the rat race they experience every day. Maybe, Schriever suggests, many of us have lost the mere ability to feel! “Most people live a life of quiet desperation.”

Many expats say they don’t have many native friends and don’t get invited into their homes. Schriever seems to have succeeded by learning the language and giving away his love as if it were a commodity. He seems to have found a way to live and be loved as an expat. Schriever lived a year in Tamarindo while writing his first book.