Geek Love
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
Geek Love
By (Author) Katherine Dunn
Little, Brown Book Group
Abacus
2nd April 1991
1st November 1990
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Fiction
FIC
Physical Properties
Paperback
512
Width 200mm, Height 133mm, Spine 34mm
400g
Description
A National Book Award Finalist: This 'wonderfully descriptive' novel from an author with a 'tremendous imagination' tells the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias have bred their own exhibit of human oddities. (The New York Times Book Review)
The Binewskis arex a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan, Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins, albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious - and dangerous - asset. As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the US, inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.Praise for Geek Love'If Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this' Literary Review 'The most romantic novel about love and family I have read. It made me ashamed to be so utterly normal' Terry Gilliam 'I felt electrocuted when I read that first page with Crystal Lil and her freak brood. I stood there in the bookstore and my jaw came unhinged. No book I've read, before or since, has given me that specific jolt' Karen Russell, author of SwamplandiaReviews
'If Flannery O'Connor has consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this.' LITERARY REVIEW 'A book of bizarre and brutal beauty, guaranteed to wring from you horror and heartbreak by turns...' COMPANY 'Riveting and extremely well-crafted. There's a real philosophy behind it where it actually touches on the profound.' MARGARET FORSTER 'A novel that everyone will be talking about, a brilliant, suspenseful, heartbreaking tour de force.' PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY 'So monumentally tasteless that it ought to have a sick bag incorporated into its jacket design. It is also hilarious, vital and original... mesmerising, chilling and curiously uplifting- the brilliant production of a brilliant imagination.' STANDARD
Author Bio
Katherine Dunn is a journalist, an advice columnist, and boxing correspondant for the Associated Press.
