Thoughts on Geek Love

Reading Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, can really mess with your dreams and eventually with your experience of "normal." Dunn's world is ruled by circus freaks (or geeks), but this story goes way beyond submerging the reader in a world of sword swallowers and fly wranglers. Dunn creates a world where the freakish is prized and normal is seen as a burden to be shed, literally.

The story is told, most of the time, in first person through the eyes of a bald, albino hunchback dwarf named Olympia. Olympia's parents run a traveling geek show, where the main act involves the matriarch, Crystal Lil, biting the heads off of live chickens. But the war comes along, and the geeks leave to join the Army, and attendance is falling off. Lil and her husband Al decide to build their own geek retinue by poisoning Lil during pregnancy. Through a variety of means, such as exposing Lil to radioisotopes and drinking arsenic, Lil has a number of deformed children. Several die, like the alligator girl, and they are displayed lovingly in jars of formaldehyde. Arty is born with flippers rather than limbs and plays the prophet from a large tank. Iphigenia and Elly are siamese twins, with completely independent upper-bodies and a shared lower body. They play amazing piano. Oly, the dwarf, is considered almost too normal to keep. The youngest child appears almost completely normal and is almost abandoned, until the family realizes he has telekentic powers.

This summary just scratches the surface of a world that is by turns jaw-dropping, disgusting, and heartbreaking. Dunn's genius is in getting us to contemplate a worldview where having ten fingers and ten toes, no noticeable deformities at all, is considered a horrible fate. A major storyline in the book has thousands of people joining Arty's "religion," Arturism. Followers work toward the goal of having all of their limbs removed and living in homes for the rest of their lives. They see this as liberation from the burdens and boredom of normalcy.

I couldn't put this book down, though I do have to admit I was disappointed with the ending. I felt like Dunn just ran out of steam, but the ride is so worth it.