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Q&A | May 1, 2012

Gregg Allman: IMG Powell’s Q&A: Gregg Allman

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Describe your new book: This book is the story of my life — the ups, the downs, and the music. If someone were to write your biography, what... Continue »
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eBook editions

Geek Love

by Katherine Dunn

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:

"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

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:

"A Fellini movie in ink.... Geek Love throws a punch." San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"Wonderfully descriptive....Dunn [has a] tremendous imagination." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Unrelentingly bizarre.... perverse but riveting....Will keep you turning the pages." Chicago Tribune
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About the Author

Katherine Dunn lives in Oregon.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 8 comments:
Jennifer Hensley, October 6, 2011 (view all comments by Jennifer Hensley)
Dark, humorous, lovely. As funny as it is piercing. Challenges what we think of as 'normal' and 'freakish.' After reading it, I feel right at home with the freaks.
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sandtu1, September 30, 2011 (view all comments by sandtu1)
This book was so good it made me ashamed to be a norm and wish for a hump back or some fins. If you like dark humor or chuck palahniuk, you will love this. My best read of the summer!!
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Malva Greenbottle, May 29, 2011 (view all comments by Malva Greenbottle)
This novel is about the lives and relationships of a circus owner and his side show freak family. The p.o.v. is from one of the "freaks", living in Portland, OR, who is writing a semi-memoir for her daughter, which she put up for adoption and is now stalking. This book can get pretty weird and creepy at times, not a horror though, because the main character grew up around the weirdness and makes it seem completely normal to polish the jar that houses your dead, deformed sibling.

DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE PREGNANT. My friend told me of nightmares for her unborn child after reading just a few chapters.
Otherwise, I would recommend this book to almost anyone. Except maybe my grandma.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375713347
Author:
Dunn, Katherine
Publisher:
Vintage Books
Location:
New York, NY
Subject:
General
Subject:
Family
Subject:
Monsters
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Circus performers.
Subject:
Carnival owners
Subject:
Freak shows
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
1989
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Series:
Vintage Contemporaries
Series Volume:
4
Publication Date:
June 2002
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
368
Dimensions:
7.95 x 5.1 x .75 in .6 lb
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Related Subjects

Featured Titles » Literature
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
History and Social Science » Pacific Northwest » Literature Folklore and Memoirs
Languages » Foreign Languages » Spanish » Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

Geek Love Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$10.95 In Stock
Product details 368 pages Vintage Books USA - English 9780375713347 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "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" by , "Page after page she shocks us....A Fellini movie in ink."
"Review" by , "Wonderfully descriptive...the comic exploration of the peculiar...gives Geek Love its main success: that and Ms. Dunn's tremendous imagination."
"Review" by , "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."
"Review" by , "A Fellini movie in ink.... Geek Love throws a punch."
"Review" by , "Wonderfully descriptive....Dunn [has a] tremendous imagination."
"Review" by , "Unrelentingly bizarre.... perverse but riveting....Will keep you turning the pages."
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