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Geek Love (Abacus Books) [Paperback]

Katherine Dunn (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £7.19 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Book Description

Publication Date: 1 Nov 1990 | Series: Abacus Books

Lil Binewski, born a Boston aristocrat, was in her time the most stylish of geeks. That is to say she made her living by biting the heads off live chickens in front of a Carnival audience. This she gave up for doting motherhood, because she had her fairground- owning husband had a money spinning idea. Throughout each pregnancy Lil gobbles pesticides, experiments with drugs and douses herself with radiation to ensure that she prodcues infants grotesque enough to keep the turnstiles clicking. She does.

Arturo the Aqua Boy is a limbless megalomaniac, Electra and Iphigenia are musically gifted Siamese twins with a penchant for prostitution and Fortunato is possessed of stange telekinetic powers. Their story- by turns shocking, tender, touching and cruel- is narrated by their sister Olympia. She is a bald, hunchbacked, albino dwarf.

Frequently Bought Together

Geek Love (Abacus Books) + Haunted
Price For Both: £13.93

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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New Ed edition (1 Nov 1990)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0349100861
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349100869
  • Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 19.7 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 8,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Katherine Dunn Page
Katherine Dunn
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Product Description

Review

If Flannery O'Connor has consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this. (LITERARY REVIEW )

A book of bizarre and brutal beauty, guaranteed to wring from you horror and heartbreak by turns... (COMPANY )

Riveting and extremely well-crafted. There's a real philosophy behind it where it actually touches on the profound. (MARGARET FORSTER )

A novel that everyone will be talking about, a brilliant, suspenseful, heartbreaking tour de force. (PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY )

About the Author

Katherine Dunn is a journalist, an advice columnist, and boxing correspondant for the Associated Press.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets, Papa would say, she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
18 reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Electrifying, Unique, Fiction is not dead! 30 April 2000
By HommeVert
Format:Paperback
This book restored my faith in modern fiction. If you're sick of writers with their heads up their own posteriors writing about how difficult is is to be a rich, succesful writer READ THIS. If this book had been written in the 1930s-50s it would be a Classic read alongside Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Greene etc. If Russell Hoban, James Thurber, Joe Orton and William S Burroughs had got together to write a book it might have been something like this - but probably not as good. It is usually a mistake to try to explain the plot to anyone because it just sounds like some sort of disgusting freak-fest that should only appeal to teenage boys. I just insist that people read it and 99% of them have been hooked from the first page. Dunn writes as though the characters are real people to her - so they appear real to us. The book has a sort of contagious magic about it, I felt happy for a week after finishing it, but it was a "sad" happiness; I had lost the wonderful world I had been drawn into but I felt changed by the experience (a cliche, but true). I thought I would never again feel like I did as a teenager when discovering Graham Greene, or Tolkein, or CS Lewis, or E Nesbitt, but Geek Love made me fall in love with books again. Just one warning: if you read it you will want to buy 10 more copies for your best friends - so it could end up being expensive. Katherine Dunn is truly a genius.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The true nature of love shines throughout this book 26 Nov 2001
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I first heard about this book via a song called 'Geek Love' by a band called Bang Bang Machine. (as far as I'm aware, the song is based on the book) The song talks of what is to 'love but never be loved'. Years later I came across the book, and from the minute I picked it up I couldn't but it down.
It really does explore the nature of human relationships - of love, of family, and of societies non-acceptance of anything not of the 'norm'. Katherine Dunn really has written a powerful account of what it is to love somebody/something and never really be loved in return. And although the book is centered around 'geeks' it tells a story of human emotion that everyone - even perfect looking humans can relate too.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost perfect 29 July 2010
By RuthB
Format:Paperback
This book has inspired me to write my first ever amazon review, as I loved it so much that the one issue I had with it disappointed me greatly.

The book pulls you into the world of the circus freak family suddenly and violently, with wonderfully crafted characters and relationships that develop and build throughout the book. The main characters are vulnerable and fallible and yet annoying and frustrating. The author is brave enough to make them unlikable, ensuring that the natural reaction towards such creatures of pity isn't an option for the reader.

I was gripped by the world of the circus created in this novel, following the children as they grow up, and yet from the start there is a sense of tragedy in the air, and it is clear that the story will not have a happy ending.

And here came my great disappointment. The ending really felt as though the author had run out of ideas, and just wanted to tie up the whole story neatly and tragically. It felt like a lazy end to what had been a wonderfully crafted and created story. A real shame, but one that shouldn't put you off reading this.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars best book ive ever read
I'm the sort of person that quits on a book if the first chapter doesn't draw me in....this does that on page one! Read more
Published 3 months ago by grostique
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book!
This book deserves to be much better known - the cover does it no favours.
The story of the BinewskI family - as narrated by Olympia ( a bald, hunchbacked, albino dwarf), is... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Em
3.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to love it
Everything about this book should have made me love it, but I didn't. It's original, clever, fascinating, but something got lost along the way and I just didn't care by the end of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by raven_guest
5.0 out of 5 stars Strange and beautiful
I only recently discovered this gem of a book. It's bold and shocking at times and tender and human at others. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Highly-Strung
5.0 out of 5 stars Geek Love
The most origonal book ever! I can guarentee you will never have read anything like it. You laugh, you cry, you shout EEEWWWWW!! Read more
Published 10 months ago by L. M. Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars Love is the word.
I was told to read this book and after reading the back cover I wondered what on Earth I had got myself into. I changed my mind after reading the first page. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Smeatooo
4.0 out of 5 stars Far from Ordinary
This book is about Art and Lily Binewski, a couple who decide that through genetic experimentation they can create a family of circus freaks. Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2010 by Kelly Jo
5.0 out of 5 stars Please write more books, Ms Dunn
A fantastic book. It's been a few months since I read it, but I also remember, like one of the other reviewers, feeling sad that I would soon have finished it, but not being able... Read more
Published on 9 Dec 2008 by Mrs. J. Vartholomeou
3.0 out of 5 stars Geeks Know a Thing or Two About Love
I really wanted to love this novel, especially because it was my choice for this month's Book Club. The premise is brilliant: a bald, albino dwarf by the name of Olympia Binewski... Read more
Published on 18 May 2008 by Oliver Redfern
5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book ever.
I cannot say enough beautiful things about this book. I honestly can say it moved me in a way no other book has ever done it. Read more
Published on 25 Aug 2004
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