Geek Love

tattooed lady circa 1920

I can't really describe Katherine Dunn’s novel, Geek Love, it is a just farking brilliant book with a quiet, creeping horror that grips you! It's one of those books you just can't tear yourself away from. In the story, the Binewskis, a couple that works in a freak show, deliberately give birth to freaks, so their children will always have jobs. This weird, funny and original piece of work follows the lives of the characters exploring the inner-working of our minds and our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene.

 Katherine Dunn  is a natural story-teller who grew up in a migrant blue-collar family in the West. Her prose is frequently pure poetry and every sentence is written with a natural grace and ease. 

She has never had any formal training, but she knew from her childhood that she would one day become a writer. Once successful, she feared her lack of training would come back to haunt her because she believed she lacked the variety and flexibility of most writers. But, she continues to have a fan-base especially for her column on boxing in the local alternative paper in Portland, Oregon, where she now lives and works.Her interest in DNA and genetic manipulation came together in her novel, Geek Love. 

From Publishers Weekly, "This audacious, mesmerizing novel should carry a warning: "Reader Beware." Those entering the world of carnival freaks described by narrator Olympia Binewski, a bald, humpbacked albino dwarf, will find no escape from a story at once engrossing and repellent, funny and terrifying, unreal and true to human nature. Dunn's vivid, energetic prose, her soaring imagination and assured narrative skill fuse to produce an unforgettable tale. The premise is bizarre. Art and Lily, owners of Binewski's Fabulon, a traveling carnival, decide to breed their own freak show by creating genetically altered children through the use of experimental drugs. "What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?" muses Lily. This raw, shocking view of the human condition, a glimpse of the tormented people who live on the fringe, makes readers confront the dark, mad elements in every society."

I highly recommend Geek Love, its an unforgettable read, you can purchase it here