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A review by andrew613
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
4.0
Well that was something. A story of a rather unusual family. Mom and dad want their children to have the gift of being able to provide for themselves so they start experimenting with hard drugs, insecticides, and radioactive material during pregnancy. This produces such abominations as the narrator — a bald albino hunchback dwarf who looks and moves like a toad. She occasionally feels inferior to her siblings for her relatively normal appearance, when asked she tells people almost apologetically “My father and mother designed me this way. They achieved greater originality in some of their other projects.”
Those other projects include her sisters the twins (Siamese naturally), who in turn will experience the miracle of giving birth when they spawn baby Mumpo, 26 pounds 5 ounces. There’s Arturo, the Aquaboy, who has flippers in place of limbs and starts a cult where people pay to have their limbs amputated. And Fortunato. You can imagine his mother’s horror and shame when he was born healthy and apparently normal. They decide to leave him at a gas station but he demonstrates his gift of telekinesis just in time to make him a keeper. There is also the “jar kin”, a menagerie of monsters who sadly died during childbirth or in infancy and are now kept for display and posterity in jars.
This book would make Jeffrey Dahmer’s skin crawl. I found myself laughing more than a few times, I hope that was intended or else there might be something wrong with me. I found it hard to put down for a while but I’d had plenty by the end, I’m happy to check out of that world. I won’t forget it any time soon though.
Those other projects include her sisters the twins (Siamese naturally), who in turn will experience the miracle of giving birth when they spawn baby Mumpo, 26 pounds 5 ounces. There’s Arturo, the Aquaboy, who has flippers in place of limbs and starts a cult where people pay to have their limbs amputated. And Fortunato. You can imagine his mother’s horror and shame when he was born healthy and apparently normal. They decide to leave him at a gas station but he demonstrates his gift of telekinesis just in time to make him a keeper. There is also the “jar kin”, a menagerie of monsters who sadly died during childbirth or in infancy and are now kept for display and posterity in jars.
This book would make Jeffrey Dahmer’s skin crawl. I found myself laughing more than a few times, I hope that was intended or else there might be something wrong with me. I found it hard to put down for a while but I’d had plenty by the end, I’m happy to check out of that world. I won’t forget it any time soon though.