House Mother Normal, the English writer B.S.Johnson"s fifth novel (published in England in 1971, reissued there in 1984), is unusual in both its subject and structure. Subtitled "A Geriatric Comedy," it is a remarkable study of old age. Stripped of sentimentality and spiked with the bizarre, the text explores the minds of the old with precision, humor, and unflagging compassion, and achieves, through the author"s inventiveness, a vivid multidimensional effect.