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''Geek Love'' is a novel by American writer Katherine Dunn, published completely by Alfred A. Knopf (a division of
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
) in 1989. Dunn published parts of the novel in ''Mississippi Mud Book of Days'' (1983) and ''Looking Glass Bookstore Review'' (1988). It was a finalist for the
National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...
.Abernethy, Michael
"Family Circus: Katherine Dunn's Geek Love,"
''Pop Matters'' (1 February 2006).
The novel is the story of a
traveling carnival A traveling carnival (American English), usually simply called a carnival, travelling funfair or travelling show (British English), is an amusement show that may be made up of List of amusement rides, amusement rides, food vendors, merchandi ...
run by Aloysius "Al" Binewski and his wife "Crystal" Lil, and their children, seen through the eyes of their daughter Olympia ("Oly"), who writes the family history for her daughter Miranda. When the business begins to fail, the couple devise an idea to breed their own
freak show A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "Freak, freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual Human#Anatomy and physiology, humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, t ...
, using various drugs and
radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...
material to alter the genes of their children. The results are Arturo ("Arty", also known as "Aqua Boy"), a boy with flippers for hands and feet; Electra ("Elly") and Iphigenia ("Iphy"), Siamese twins; Olympia ("Oly"), a hunchbacked
albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and reddish pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albinos. Varied use and interpretation of ...
dwarf Dwarf, dwarfs or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a supernatural being from Germanic folklore * Dwarf, a human or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a sh ...
; and Fortunato ("Chick"), the normal-looking baby of the family who has telekinetic powers.


Plot summary

The novel takes place in two interwoven time periods: the first deals with the Binewski children's constant struggle against each other through life. They especially have to deal with the Machiavellian Arty as he develops his own
cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...
: Arturism. In this cult, Arty persuades people to have their limbs amputated (so that they can be like him) in their search for the principle he calls PIP ("Peace, Isolation, Purity"). Each member moves up in stages, losing increasingly significant chunks of their body, starting with their toes and fingers. As Arty battles his siblings to maintain control over his followers, competition between their respective freak shows slowly begins to take over their lives. The second story is set in the present and is centered on Oly's daughter, Miranda. Nineteen-year-old Miranda does not know Oly is her mother. She lives on a trust fund created by Oly before she gave up her daughter to be raised by nuns. This had been urged by her brother Arty, who was also Miranda's father (not through sexual intercourse, but by the telekinetic powers of Chick, who carried Arty's
sperm Sperm (: sperm or sperms) is the male reproductive Cell (biology), cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm ...
directly to Oly's ovum). Oly lives in the same rooming house as Miranda so she can "spy" on her. (The rooming house is run by "Crystal" Lil, who is so addled that she doesn't know Oly is her daughter.) Miranda has a special defect of her own, a small tail, which she flaunts at a local fetish strip club. There she meets Mary Lick, who tries to persuade her to have the tail cut off. Lick is a wealthy woman who pays attractive women to get disfiguring operations, ostensibly so they may live up to their potential instead of becoming sex objects; it is implied, however, that Lick's real motivation is to punish them for being more attractive than she is. Oly plans to stop Lick in order to protect her daughter.


Genesis

Dunn has said she remembers when she began writing the book in the late '70s, walking to Portland's Washington Park Rose Garden, contemplating nature versus nurture. Her interest in cults also led to elements of the book. She has described the genesis of the book, which took her nearly ten years to write and more than that to publish it, in 1989. She said "All the time I was working on ''Geek Love'', it was like my own private autism."


Publishing design

The book's original cover art by Chip Kidd caused a sensation at book conventions when it was introduced in 1989. Its plain, stark orange color and unusual fonts went against conventional design aesthetics. In keeping with the novel's theme of
mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...
, the lettering of the title employs mutated fonts, and the book's spine sports a five-legged dog, an alteration of the Knopf logo of a Russian wolfhound, that Kidd slipped past the publisher and which was not noticed until after the initial print run.


Reception and legacy

The novel was published on March 11, 1989, with an initial printing of 20,000 copies. the book sold more than 400,000 copies, 10,000 of them ebooks. Jim Rose (of the Jim Rose Circus) has said that "Dunn set the table for this whole modern freak-show vibe". Novelist Karen Russell described the prose as "pyrotechnic medium so far removed from our workaday speech that it feels unfair and inaccurate to call that fire-language 'English'". The novel was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989. In 1992, the British band
Bang Bang Machine Bang Bang Machine were a cult indie band from Evesham, Worcestershire in England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it cover ...
released the single "Geek Love", about the novel. The song topped the
John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from ...
Festive 50 that year.
Tim Burton Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer. Known for popularizing Goth subculture, Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his Gothic film, gothic horror and dark fantasy films. ...
bought the rights to the book in the 1990s, but there has been no word about it since. In an interview, Dunn stated, "He's got the rights. That's half the battle right there. Though it no longer seems like something he'd do. It's a little too horror for him now in my opinion. Though I would love to see this film get made."
The Wachowskis Lana Wachowski (born Larry Wachowski, June 21, 1965) and Lilly Wachowski (born Andy Wachowski, December 29, 1967) are American film and television directors, writers and producers. The sisters are both trans women. Together known as the Wacho ...
also have expressed interest in adapting it for the screen, and Warner Bros. decided to purchase the adaptation rights "indefinitely". In January 2004 theatre company ''Sensurround Stagings'' in
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, produced a well-received stage adaptation of ''Geek Love''. This adaptation was reprised in Atlanta for summer 2004 and then taken to the New York Fringe Festival later that year.


References

{{Reflist 1989 American novels Alfred A. Knopf books Fiction about incest