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Guests | October 20, 2009

Vincent McCaffrey: IMG A Practical Matter

2 comments By Vincent McCaffrey

It was in a letter of 1897, about his cousin James Ross Clemens, that Mark Twain famously noted that "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He... Continue »
  1. $16.80 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    Hound: A Mystery

    Vincent McCaffrey

Geek Love

Geek Love Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out — with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes — to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's 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 U.S., 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.

Review:

"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....a novel that everyone will be talking about, a brilliant, suspenseful, heartbreaking tour de force." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"What elevates this work is Dunn's controlled, matter-of-fact narrative, her skillful character development, and her relentless insistence that we address these people and their concerns in human terms. Highly recommended." Joseph M. Levandoski, Library Journal

Review:

"Page after page she shocks us....A Fellini movie in ink." San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"Wonderfully descriptive...the comic exploration of the peculiar...gives Geek Love its main success: that and Ms. Dunn's tremendous imagination." New York Times Book Review
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About the Author

Katherine Dunn is a best-selling novelist, journalist, voice artist, radio personality, book reviewer, and poet from Portland, Oregon.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
Jeane, June 4, 2008 (view all comments by Jeane)
This book is well-written, interesting and hard to put down. Until you start to feel disgusted. It's about a family of freaks, in a traveling circus. There is a boy with flippers instead of arms, an albino midget, a pair of siamese twins, etc. But their parents intentionally used drugs, chemicals and radiation during pregnancy in order to create a family of freaks. If that isn't horrifying enough, the manipulative, greedy and egoistic characters are pretty unpleasant, and there are lots of disturbing situations, including the building of cults, incest and intentional self-mutilation for attention. I found this book really unsettling and still don't know quite what to make of it.
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Heidi, October 21, 2006 (view all comments by Heidi)
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I would consider myself a poorer person had I never read it. Poignant, gritty, shocking...it keeps you wrapped up, literally making you part of it all....until the last page, and then you're crying because there is no more.
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(8 of 12 readers found this comment helpful)
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Melissa Kinsey, September 23, 2006 (view all comments by Melissa Kinsey)
I hesitantly agreed to read this book on the recommendation of a friend. I couldn't see how the story of a carnival family who seeds their own show by purposely creating mutant offspring could be instructive in any way. Halfway through, I found myself empathizing with the loyal-to-a-fault narrator, a bald, albino hunchback who is devoted to her limbless, partially aquatic egalomaniac brother. Their siblings, musically talented Siamese twins, and a clairvoyant younger brother, have similarly twisted relationships with their brother Arty. The story is wild and enchanting, but it is how it makes you think about "normal" life that is most amazing.
I don't know what else to say but "Read It!"
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780446391306
Publisher:
Warner Books, Inc.
Location:
New York, NY :
Author:
Dunn, Katherine
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Family
Subject:
Monsters
Subject:
Family -- Fiction.
Subject:
Carnival owners
Copyright:
1989
Series Volume:
[no. 75]
Publication Date:
1990
Binding:
Trade Paper
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
355 p.
Dimensions:
8.00x5.29x1.05 in. .77 lbs.
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