Entertainment : Books & Poetry
'Geek Love' a delightful but terrifying romp
By Kait Barnes, Staff Writer
October 26, 2007 | 6 a.m.
“Geek Love” may take place right here on planet earth, but within its pages lies a completely alien world. The novel tells the tale of an old-school carnival family in which hideously deformed human beings are the main attraction, and children are used as pawns for money and fame. “Geek Love” immediately creates an otherworldly vibe with its opening chapter. It describes how the matriarch and the patriarch of the deformed Binewski family first met.
In the beginning Lil, the mother figure, starts out as a simple carnie. When she takes on the role of a geek at a traveling circus, she attracts the attention of her future spouse, Al Binewski. Dunn’s detailed prose describes how he fell for Lil's shining chompers and the way that she savagely bit off chicken heads. The startling opening section sets the tone of the rest of the book, which opens the readers to a world they could never imagine.
The novel’s main character is Oly Binewski. It is told from her perspective, and it is her personality that is most closely analyzed. The reader gets to know Oly as a self-conscious person; she describes her condition as being not that special, and how, as an adult, she lives her life as a hermit. Oly claims that she is not short enough, her hump is not prominent enough and her eyes are not pink enough. She thinks there is nothing strange about herself. In her mind, this near normalcy makes her stick out in a bad way.
Throughout the novel, Oly seems to think of herself as a subpar member of the family who is not nearly strange enough to bring in an audience that measures up to her siblings’ bizarre deformities. Oly’s lack of self-esteem leads her to worship people from afar, including her strange adoration for her brother Arty and the mysterious people that surround her in Portland. It is through Oly that the audience gets to know the Binewski family in all of its glory.
Dunn’s cast of characters is amazingly depicted. The Binewski family in itself is perfect as a circus family. The family is diverse in their attitudes and physical deformities, and Dunn artfully describes these physical attributes and emotional characteristics in a skilled way. The fishlike body of Arturo the Aqua Boy is as adeptly illustrated as the close, but detrimental bond between the conjoined twins, Elly and Iphy. Dunn also weaves the personalities of these characters into separate and intriguing entities. Arturo is a dangerous and vengeful character because of his sociopathic personality molded by his thirst for fame and even more so, by his inability to bathe or do anything for himself. The twins are two different people, one much nicer than the other, but their actions and thought processes are always entwined, even if one is unsure of the action they are about to take. The innocence and power of the youngest child, the telepath Chick, creates a paradoxical character that is exploited by the older members of the family.
“Geek Love” takes place in two different places; the “Carnival Fabulon” of early Binewski life and modern day Portland, Oregon, where the main character, the Binewskis’ resident hump-backed, albino dwarf Oly, lives, works and watches over a mysterious but beautiful art student who just so happens to have a tail. Wherever Oly is, situations are bound to be bizarre simply because of her strange upbringing and obvious physical deformities. The world of the traveling circus is colorfully strange, while Portland is dank and quietly eerie. The different settings of the novel give the plot a layered feeling that makes this piece of literature far from one-dimensional.
The dynamic of the Binewski family is best summed up in the word "parasitic." The parents feed off their children’s deformities to obtain fortune and notoriety, while the children feed off attention and become addicted to it. The children were born deformed because Lil experimented with drugs during her pregnancy, trying to birth the strangest child possible. The parents use their children and only care for them when they are attempting to maintain their offspring’s place in the circus. The bloodsucking atmosphere created by Dunn’s words is equally terrifying and heartbreaking.
“Geek Love” is a witty and terrifying tale. It may have been written more than two decades ago, but even now it stands the test of time with its frightening ideas and stark, terrifying prose.
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Buy "Geek Love" at Amazon.
Also check out Athens' local libraries for a copy.