Book Review - Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

I told a fellow reader that I like to read books about different subjects because I do read so much and the same old stories can get repititious. Next time I saw her she showed up with this. Oh my word. The weirdest horriblest movie I've ever seen is Boxing Helena. I now have my bat shit crazy bizzaro book everest. I don't even know wether to recommend it or not.

The summary on the back of the book is weird enough. A carnival couple, in an attempt to draw in more people, purposely attempt to have babies with deformities and such to create their own freak show. They do this with drugs and more. They have a son with flipper arm and legs, conjoined twin girls, an albino dwarf with a hump, a child who is telkinetic, and then those that did not survive in jars on display.

If that is not odd enough, there exist a power struggle between the kids for the most box office draw. A cult following forms around Arturo, the flipper boy. We then get into people purposely mutilating their limps to belong. Conjoined twin prostitution. Lobotomies. It goes on, and the story tosses back and forth from the old carnival days and it's demise and the present and what has become of those left.

I've never read anything like it and I can't say I want to again, but it's a notorious one under the belt and now that it's finally done, I guess I'm glad to have read it.