Geeks Know a Thing or Two About Love

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love, 1989
I really wanted to love this novel, especially because it was my choice for this month's Book Club. The premise is brilliant: a bald, albino dwarf by the name of Olympia Binewski retells the tragic story of her family of circus freaks. Her parents, Al and Lily, exposed each of Lily's pregnancies to chemicals and poisons, in the hope of landing deformed and freakish children. The idea was to use the children to attract large crowds to their travelling circus. Eldest child Arturo The Aquaman is also the tyranical leader of a cult; Elly and Iphy are the siamese twins talented with the piano and prostitution; and Chick is the family's timid junior with telekinetic powers.

Although some of the squeamishest passages were also the funniest, they were counterbalanced by passages that seemed irrelevant to the story and which were a little boring. The language veered between the colourful & baroque to the downright high-school creative writing level. The most important events happened too quickly, as if the author had lost interest and just wanted to get closer to the end, which ended up matching my own feelings.

A recommended read only if you have a thing for carnies or belong to an "unusual" family.