Katherine Dunn (1) (1945–2016)

Over the years I've seen many comments about how disturbing Geek Love is in the reading. I had always assumed that the disturbing element in the narrative is the book's vibrant strain of the macabre. Given that I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing, I was expecting not to be disturbed and was looking forward to enjoying a well written, out of the ordinary tale. Lo and behold, I found large sections of Geek Love disturbing indeed. Not for its element of macabre, however. For at its show more core, this book for me is about malevolence, and about how a charismatically malevolent person can somehow inspire unconditional love and dedication instead of revulsion and dread. The level of malevolence portrayed is so deep as to be downright Shakespearean, and some of the acts perpetrated by the central character are, indeed, disturbing in the reading and in the post-reading reflection. The book is really a story within a story, both told by a well-developed character with a very good narrative voice. Unfortunately for me, both stories, the "present day" and the flashback tale, end rather abruptly and, for me, unsatisfyingly. I'm glad I read this book, but I wouldn't go out of my way to suggest it to anybody. show less

What a disturbing novel about what it means to be "human" or a person, and the lengths people go to to feel special. If anything, this novel is a reflection of both the desire and the disgust for difference that exists within the human race. We love the absurd, Geek Love tells us, because it allows us to feel normal; but what Geek Love also shows is how we hate the normal because it makes us feel useless.

What I loved most is how every single character is despicable and unlikable in their own show more ways, yet you can't help but love them all. Maybe that's the most disturbing part: about how people who do disgusting things can be so close to your heart, and how easy it is to forgive them even when you know what they do is wrong.

Everyone I talk about this book with says they want to read it. I will admit, this is probably because I absolutely adored it. The writing can be a bit dry at times, dense with words, and the plot is slow, but it's this slowness that lets you sink into the world, lets you understand the carnivalesque, lets you feel almost... almost like you could be one of them. But you're not. And the novel never lets you forget that.

I will warn you, as I warn everyone I talk to this book with, it is highly disturbing and not for those with weak stomachs or hearts. There is a lot that is messed up, twisted to the point where you can't believe people would do such things and yet... you understand their choices exactly.

Because, Geek Love shows us, we're all monsters, and if we aren't, we all crave to be one. show less

A carnival owner and his wife decide to "create" their own sideshow attractions by experimenting with drugs, radiation, and the like during pregnancy.

With that outlandish premise, Dunn leads the reader through the tent flap and, gradually, deeper and deeper into the bizarre and isolated world of the traveling carnival that incubates the Binewski children. The five children are: Arty, born with flippers for arms and legs; the conjoined twins Elly and Iphy; the narrator, an albino, hunchback show more dwarf named Olympia; and baby Chick, with the most special powers of all. As they grow up, separated from the world, never really sure where the carnival is at any particular time, and constantly reinforced with how special they are when compared to the "norms," a certain warping is bound to occur. We are fully ensnared by this time as Dunn gradually ratchets up the horror, introducing more demented characters and increasingly grotesque elements, but we've paid our money and we're going to look. Even as we silently think that she can't go there, that is indeed where Dunn chooses to go.

But yet, despite the grotesqueness and strangeness of these characters and this story, it is at its essence about family: what makes a family, what we will do for our families, what our families do to us. This book is not just about ogling freaks. It's about contemplating the freak inside. show less

You ever read a book that feels less like a story and more like being dragged through a carnival after midnight—lights flickering, something rotting behind the cotton candy, everyone smiling just a little too wide?

That’s Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.

And I don’t mean that as a warning. I mean it as a dare.

This isn’t one of those polite novels you stack on your nightstand to signal you’re “well-read.” This thing breathes. It mutates. It stares back at you and asks questions you show more don’t want to answer—about family, about love, about what we’re willing to deform in ourselves just to belong to something.

The premise alone should be enough to send most people running: parents who intentionally engineer their children to be “freaks” for a traveling circus. But that’s just the surface-level grotesque—the hook. The real horror is quieter. It’s devotion twisted into something unrecognizable. It’s loyalty that crosses a line so gradually you don’t notice until you’re already on the other side, nodding along.

And that’s the uncomfortable truth of it: you do nod along.

I caught myself doing it—justifying things I shouldn’t, understanding people I didn’t want to understand. That’s Dunn’s trick. She doesn’t ask for your sympathy. She takes it.

There’s something in here about the lie we tell ourselves—that love is inherently good. That family is sacred. That belonging is worth whatever it costs.

This book doesn’t argue against those ideas. It just quietly shows you what they look like when taken to their logical extreme… and lets you sit there with it.

No moral. No clean ending. No relief.

Just the lingering sense that the line between “them” and “us” is thinner than we’d like to admit—and maybe always has been.

Read it if you want something safe, and you’ll hate it.

Read it if you want something true, and it’ll stay with you longer than you’d like. show less