Geek Love
Dec 2014 · Hachette UK
4.7star
11 reviewsreport
Ebook
400
Pages
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About this ebook
A National Book Award Finalist: This 'wonderfully descriptive' novel from an author with a 'tremendous imagination' tells the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias have bred their own exhibit of human oddities. (The New York Times Book Review)
The Binewskis arex a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include 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 US, 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.
Praise for Geek Love
'If Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this' Literary Review
'The most romantic novel about love and family I have read. It made me ashamed to be so utterly normal' Terry Gilliam
'I felt electrocuted when I read that first page with Crystal Lil and her freak brood. I stood there in the bookstore and my jaw came unhinged. No book I've read, before or since, has given me that specific jolt' Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia
The Binewskis arex a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include 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 US, 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.
Praise for Geek Love
'If Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this' Literary Review
'The most romantic novel about love and family I have read. It made me ashamed to be so utterly normal' Terry Gilliam
'I felt electrocuted when I read that first page with Crystal Lil and her freak brood. I stood there in the bookstore and my jaw came unhinged. No book I've read, before or since, has given me that specific jolt' Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia
Ratings and reviews
4.7
11 reviews
Leane
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June 29, 2024
What is love? What makes someone family? What does it even mean to be 'normal'? The story of 'Geek Love' centres around Oly and jumps back and forth in time to reveal her narrative to us. If you came here looking for a hearts and flowers view of love, you might struggle with the narrative of this dysfunctional group of individuals. (Dysfunction which has nothing to do with their physical appearances.) Some readers will find this tale disturbing at times, and I don't recommend this for younger audiences. Just remember, that while beauty to one person might be the looks of an adventuring Prince/ Princess, to the next person it might be a woman dressed in white, singing Schubert songs, as she bites the heads off live chickens...
Catherine Mellersh
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December 26, 2015
One you will not forget but possibly not for positive reasons!! It is awful, gruelling but sinks its hooks into you and drags you into the seedy world of carnivals in their hey day...
2 people found this review helpful
football channel Tottenham hotspur
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February 19, 2018
A truly thrilling, sad,funny read. I loved it and am sad to actually leave the characters I have grown to love and get back to normality
1 person found this review helpful
About the author
Katherine Dunn was a journalist, an advice columnist, and a boxing correspondent for the Associated Press. She died in 2016.
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