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Product Description
From Amazon.com
A wild, often horrifying, novel about freaks, geeks and other aberrancies of the human condition who travel together (a whole family of them) as a circus. It's a solipsistic funhouse world that makes "normal" people seem bland and pitiful. Arturo the Aqua-Boy, who has flippers and an enormous need to be loved. A museum of sacred monsters that didn't make it. An endearing "little beetle" of a heroine. Sort of like Tod Browning's Freaks crossed with David Lynch and John Irving and perhaps George Eliot -- the latter for the power of the emotions evoked.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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. Eventually their family consists of Arty, aka Arturo the Aqua Boy, born with flippers instead of limbs, who performs swimming inside a tank and soon learns how to manipulate his audience; Electra and Iphigenia, Siamese twins and pianists; the narrator, Oly; and Fortunato, also called the Chick, who seems normal at birth, but whose telekinetic powers become apparent just as his brokenhearted parents are about to abandon him. More than anatomy has been altered. Arty is a monsterpower hungry, evil, malicious, consumed by "dark, bitter meanness and . . . jagged rippling jealousy." Yet he has the capacity to inspire adoration, especially that of Oly, who is his willing slave, and who arranges to bear his child, Miranda, who appears "norm," but has a tiny tail. A spellbinding orator, Arty uses his ability to establish a religious cult, in which he preaches redemption through the sacrifice of body partsdigits and limbs."I want the losers who know they're losers. I want those who have a choice of tortures and pick me." 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. After a hiatus of almost two decades, the author of Attic and Truck has produced a novel that everyone will be talking about, a brilliant, suspenseful, heartbreaking tour de force.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Warning: Viewer Discretion Advised,
By lizvelrene "lizvelrene" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Geek Love: A Novel (Paperback)
I couldn't put this book down, and carried it around for about a week, deeply and happily immersed. But, just for comparison, when I showed it to my boyfriend and he read the back cover, he physically recoiled and hastily handed it back to me. Funnily enough, he enjoys true-crime books/programs, and I can't stand the things. I think it's the same impulse though: we feel that these things, though repulsive to many, have things to teach us about human nature. With that in mind, I have to commend Katherine Dunn for a very well written, memorable, and thought-provoking book -- with the disclaimer it is absolutely not for everyone. Basically, if you are armed with the knowledge that the book is about a family of circus freaks (including a fish-boy with no real limbs, siamese twins, and an albino dwarf, all purposely bred for birth defects with the use of drugs and radiation), and you are assured that ***it only gets worse from there***, and you still find yourself curious, then for goodness sake go out and get the book right now, because it delivers everything you would want except perhaps for a happy ending. While I find writers like Chuck Palanuik and Bret Easton Ellis to be smug and shallow (there goes my reviewer rating!) I find them to be the only comparison to this book for actual shock value. I can't remember the last time I was actually shocked, not disturbed but shocked, at a book, and without being inclined to throw it out the window. The amount of humanity and vibrancy in these characters despite their ugly and often cruel natures kept me riveted. Highly recommended, for those with strong stomachs.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Probably the single most important book of my life, so far.,
By
This review is from: Geek Love (Hardcover)
That sounds melodramatic, but I've never been so moved by a story, or placed so much emotional investment into fictional characters. I first encountered this novel in college Freshman English. This is one of those books where you either get it or you don't get it. Most of the other students, cheerleader types fresh off the high school boat, didn't get it. They found it unneccessarily "gross and crude", as well as "just weird". Our instructor was generally chastised by his class for being into stupid, bizarre literature. I, on the other hand, spent the whole semester obsessing over "Geek Love", reading it at least three times and underlining favorite phrases, like "inchy little marks like the hesitation cuts on a suicide's wrist." I found Dunn's writing courageous, ingenious, delicious. So poetic in it's monstrosity, so lovely in it's ugliness. I loved her humane monsters, hated her
monstrous humans, and discovered that the more I read, the less I could tell the difference between them. My concern and involvement in Oly's life almost scared me. I obsessed over the importance of color in the novel. My crumpled paperback copy is filled with pencil marks noting each time "red" or "green" is mentioned. In the end I felt drained, but inspired. Katherine Dunn altered my ideas about how far to go with an image. She showed me beauty can be created from ugliness, profound thoughts can spring from crude words. All I can say to her is "Thank you."
4.0 out of 5 stars
Could't put it down!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Geek Love: A Novel (Paperback)
I loved this book! The story was so strange but still somewhat believable... has real shock value. I find that the book is similar in style to Chuck Palanuik's book Invisible Monsters but far more interesting and believable. I agree with the other reviewer who thought that the books ending wasn't fully realized and a bit rushed. Still, this book had me captive, I recommend it!
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