Geek Love

:"Geek Love is also a single from American singer fan 3 and a song by Bang Bang Machine."

infobox Book |
name = Geek Love
orig title =
translator =


author = Katherine Dunn
cover_artist = David Hughes
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Random House
release_date = 1989
media_type = Print (Hardback and Paperback)
pages = 368 Pages
isbn = ISBN 0394569024
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Geek Love" is a novel by Katherine Dunn and first published in 1989. It was first published in parts in "Mississippi Mud Book of Days" and "Looking Glass Bookstore Review" in 1983 and 1988. The first complete text was published hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, in 1989.

The novel is the story of a traveling circus run by Aloysius "Al" Binewski and his wife, "Crystal" Lil. When Al's circus 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 still-borns kept preserved in jars in a special wing of the freak show. The story is told by Oly in the form of a novel written for her daughter Miranda.

Plot summary

Two stories are told. The first deals with the Binewski children's constant vicious struggle against each other, but especially against Arty as he develops his own cult: Arturism. Arturism involves members having their limbs amputated so that they can end up 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, mundane aspects of their lives, such as competition between their respective freak shows, slowly begin to take over their lives.

The second story involves Oly's daughter, Miranda. Miranda, in her early twenties, does not know Oly is her mother, and lives on a trust fund set up by Oly before she was given up to be raised by nuns at the urging of Arturo, who is not entirely coincidentally Miranda's father. 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. Mary Lick, a wealthy woman who pays poor but attractive women to get operations that disfigure them so that they may live up to their potential instead of becoming sex objects, tries to convince her to have it cut off. Oly's plan is to stop Lick in order to protect her daughter.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Though no filmed version is finished yet, it is rumored that director Tim Burton wants to eventually sign on with the project. In November 2004, the website Dreams announced that director Terry Gilliam was interested in doing a film adaptation of the book, in August 2006, he revealed after a screening of his latest film "Tideland", that he and Johnny Depp are big fans of the book and they are both keen on doing a film, but Gilliam knows he probably won't get the money for it, because of the film rights for the book.

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.

Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science

Dunn worked on the novel for ten years. Two inspirations came from the Jonestown deaths and from a rose garden in Portland, Oregon (this inspiration was put into the novel; it's the same way Aloysius Binewski comes up with the idea of his designed children).

Allusions/references from other works

"Geek Love" is also a song by the cult British band Bang Bang Machine. Their song was inspired by Katherine Dunn's book. They had the same artist who drew the cover of the book do their album cover. The late John Peel was a fan of this song and used it as an example to bands to self finance their own debut 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.

External links

* [http://www.popmatters.com/features/mft/geek-love-060201.shtml Geek Love book review]