Geek Love
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- "Geek Love" is also a single from American singer fan 3 and a song by Bang Bang Machine.
| Geek Love | |
 |
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| Author | Katherine Dunn |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | David Hughes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Publication date | 1989 |
| Media type | print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 368 Pages |
| ISBN | 0394569024 |
Geek Love is a novel by Katherine Dunn, published completely by Alfred A. Knopf (a division of Random House) 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 novel is the story of a traveling carnival run by Aloysius "Al" Binewski and his wife "Crystal" Lil. When the business begins to fail, the couple devise an idea to breed their own freak show, using various drugs and radioactive material to alter the genes of their children. Who emerges are Arturo ("Arty"), a boy with flippers for hands and feet; Electra ("Elly") and Iphigenia ("Iphy"), the Siamese Twins; Olympia ("Oly"), the hunchback albino dwarf; and Fortunato ("Chick"), the normal-looking telekinetic baby of the family, as well as a number of stillborns kept preserved in jars in a special wing of the freak show.
Oly tells the story of her family in the form of a novel written for her daughter Miranda.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Two time periods are covered: the first deals with the Binewski children's constant vicious struggle against each other through life. They especially have to deal with Arty as he develops his own cult: Arturism. Arturism involves members having their limbs amputated so that they can be like Arty, the cult leader, in their search for the principle he calls PIP ("Peace, Isolation, Purity"). Each member moves up in stages, losing increasingly significant chunks of their limbs, 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. In her early twenties, 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 Arturo, who was also Miranda's father (via Chick's telekinesis.) Oly lives in the same rooming house as Miranda so she can "spy" on her. 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 convince her to have the tail cut off. Lick is a wealthy woman who pays poor but attractive women to get slightly disfiguring operations so they may live up to their potential instead of becoming sex objects. Oly plans to stop Lick in order to protect her daughter.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Recently Sensurround Stagings in Atlanta 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.
[edit] Allusions/references
Dunn worked on the novel for ten years. She was influenced by the rise of cults and the Jonestown deaths, and inspired by a rose garden in Portland, Oregon.
[edit] Popular media references
The cult British band Bang Bang Machine produced a song "Geek Love", inspired by Katherine Dunn's book. They also used the artist who drew the book's cover of the book to design their own album cover. The late John Peel was a fan of this song. He said it was a good example of how bands could self-finance their own début songs.
The British singer/songwriter Nerina Pallot also has a song called "Geek Love", included on her 2006 album Fires. Whether there is any connection with the book by Dunn is unknown.
The Texas band Seed had a song inspired by the book called "Kids...This is Fabulon" on their 1994 album Ling.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Geek Love |
