Is this normal?

Yes. When the network is down, there's no way for the server to notify the client that it's closing the connection.

Is there a way to get around this?

Reconnect if you don't hear anything from the server after a certain period of time. See IO::Select. You could also use alarm.

Optionally, also have the client periodically issue some command that has no effect other than causing the server to send something back.