geek love

i actually read katherine dunn's novel, geek love, for the first time around this time last year. i had been meaning to write about it here since but had been reluctant to try and do this novel justice; it's so good that i just didn't think i would be able to adeptly describe how wonderful this novel really is.

instead, i went on a seven month campaign, urging friends and bibliophiles alike to read this book (since arm flailing and incoherent rambling is much better received in person, as opposed to in writing). for one reason or another, everyone of these people have returned to ask me, 'what was that book called that you were telling me about?' (maybe they were too distracted by the excited body gestures to remember). so, i figured i should just suck it up and write something so people can remember to pick up the damn book the next time their at the library/book store.

so dunn's novel is about a couple, al and lil, who decide to revive their failing traveling carnival by breeding freaks. the couple experiment with illicit drugs, arsenic and radio active materials, among other things doctors generally tell pregnant women to avoid, to engineer the genes of their children. their efforts are successful and the result is a tight nit family of flippered, bald, telekinetic weirdos. however, as the carnival grows in popularity and the children grow older, the dynamic of the family changes and things begin to unravel.

dunn's style of writing is brutual, clever and daring. she never once shies away from giving her reader the blunt reality of her characters and her descriptions are unflinching. for example, describing lil's talent for biting the heads off chickens is simultaneously beautiful yet bloody:

"there never was such a snap and twist of the wrist, such a vampire flick of the jaws over a neck or such a champagne approach to the blood. she'd shake her star-white hair and the bitten-off chicken head would skew off into the corner while she dug her rosy little fingernails in and lifted the flopping, jittering carcass like a golden goblet, and sipped! absolutely sipped at the wriggling guts! she was magnificent, a princess, a cleopatra, an elfin queen!" (chapter 1, pg. 6)

 i hope you will read this novel. a national book award finalist, geek love, challenges our understanding of normal verses abnormal and allows us to examine our own feelings of 'us' verses 'them'. more importantly, geek love is about family and the (sometimes strange) ties that bind us together.

if you are interested in learning more about this book, there's a really fascinating interview with katherine dunn here. it's worth a listen, if only to hear how amazingly deep and sexy dunn's voice is.