Katharine Dunn’s chilling story of Circus Freaks is a must-read.
Artwork by Anna Becker
Enthralling, gritty, grotesque and beautiful, Geek Love is one of those books I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from. The story it tells is just as strange as the characters in the story.
The story follows the Binewskis, a family of traveling circus freaks. These circus freaks, however, are more special than most. Unlike other troupes of their kind, the Binewskis are an actual blood family. Before you jump to the “kissing cousins” conclusion, let me explain: Al Binewski- the father of the family- and Lil Binewski- the mother- set out on a series of experiments using fertility drugs and Lil’s womb to create the perfect freak show.
The first-born was Arty, the fish-boy, then Oly, the hunchback albino (also our narrator), then Elly and Iphy, the musically gifted Siamese twins and finally the mysterious Chick. The book alternates between stories of this family and their attempt to survive despite their malformations, and the story of Oly’s daughter, several years later.
In this second story, we find out that Oly has been living in the same rooming house as her daughter, Miranda, but Miranda does not know that Oly is her mother. Miranda has been living for her entire life on a trust fund from Oly, and now makes her living flaunting her small deformity (a tail). While there, Miranda meets a woman named Mary Lick, who offers her money to have the tail cut off. Oly won’t stand for this, and sets out to protect her daughter at any costs.
Dunn dangles a string of mysteries above the head of the reader, so that even if the writing weren’t amazing enough to hook the reader, their curiosity would be.
A large part of Geek Love’s appeal is its devotion to reality. No amount of sappiness goes unmatched with an equal amount of raw reality. A large part of the book is graphic, making this material unsuitable for children and the easily offended, but Dunn’s boldness in never backing away from touchy subjects adds to the appeal of the book. The writing style and unique story make shuddering through a few graphic pages not so bad.
As strangely as the book began – with the story of how Lil bit off the head of a chicken and drank its blood – I honestly wasn’t expecting the book’s dramatic conclusion (which I can’t reveal for fear of spoilers), even though the author led up to it very well. I noticed only at the end that the threads were all there from the very beginning.
Still, the book was very confusing before I got the hang of it. The identity of the narrator is not entirely clear until the middle of the second chapter, and the time period fluctuates in the strangest places. The author writes like one who truly knows her characters, but she throws the readers into their world without any preparation and seems to expect them to remember a character who was only briefly mentioned in a paragraph two chapters before.
Geek Love has the feel of a mystery novel, and is one I would read a second time. I highly suggest Geek Love to anyone who is tired of the humdrum love stories and romanticized detective mysteries that seem to line every library shelf, and to anyone who won’t let a little bit of freakishness get in the way of his or her enjoyment of spectacular literature.
Rating: ★★★★☆
