VURT YOUR ENTHUSIASM (5)
By:
July 17, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of science fiction novels and comics from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn.
KATHERINE DUNN | GEEK LOVE | 1989
I had barely opened up Geek Love for a reread when Little Irvy popped into my mind. Irvy was a midway attraction from the 1960s to the 1990s, a sperm whale whose frozen carcass spanned the length of the refrigerated truck in which he was stored. A recorded spiel ballyhooed Irvy’s size (20 tons! 38 feet!) and the story of his “capture,” actually his death by harpoon. Now the thought makes me sad, but at ten years old, I was captivated. Visiting Irvy at the Wisconsin State Fair in the early ’70s also meant a brief respite from the midwestern summer heat, to me almost as great a draw as the whale itself. But entering Irvy’s trailer (painted icy blue inside and out, a color that set off his wrinkly blackness) gave me a goose-pimply shiver that was more than just the air-conditioning, a mix of fascination, fear, and maybe a touch of revulsion.
Reading Geek Love is a little bit like that. There’s rape, murder, incest via telekinesis, a man whose failed suicide has left him without a face, a botched lobotomy (as if there’s any other sort), plus many other gross-out factors, not to mention the family at the heart of the novel. Al and Crystal Lil Binewski set out to create a family of freaks by liberally dosing Lil with drugs and chemicals during her pregnancies. Their brood includes Arturo, who has fins instead of limbs; conjoined twins, Electra and Iphigenia; Olympia, a hunchbacked albino dwarf; and Fortunato aka Chick, normal to eye, but possessed of psychokinetic power. There’s also a trailer, not unlike Irvy’s, filled with Lil and Al’s “jar kids” — fetuses and babies who didn’t survive, but are on display anyway.
Amputation and mutilation are important features of both storylines. In the flashback, adherents to Arturo’s cult give up appendages to become exalted “Admitted” members, while in the present day, the sadistic millionaire Mary Lick pays young women to undergo disfigurement, because, it’s implied, she’s jealous of their looks.
Strip away the book’s Grand Guignol effects, however, and you’ll find a story of family jealousies and sorrow. Oly is the book’s throbbing heart and narrator, but her “commonplace deformities” aren’t flashy enough for her family to fully appreciate. Neither of her two great loves, brother Arty and daughter/sister Miranda, returns her affection in the way she desires, though for very different reasons. Ultimately, she sacrifices her life to save Miranda’s Binewski inheritance (a tail) from Mary Lick’s surgeon’s scalpel.
“Geek Love is a snuff film made legitimate by a reputable publishing house,” opined a reviewer in The Nation shortly after publication. That’s a harsh take. I prefer the inscription in my used copy. “I hope you enjoy this book. It’s a little strange but I promise that it will never bore.”
VURT YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on SNOW CRASH | Mandy Keifetz on THE GENOCIDAL HEALER | Matthew De Abaitua on SWAMP THING | Carlo Rotella on THE PLAYER OF GAMES | Lynn Peril on GEEK LOVE | Stephanie Burt on THE CARPATHIANS | Josh Glenn on DAL TOKYO | Deb Chachra on THE HYPERION CANTOS | Adam McGovern on KID ETERNITY | Nikhil Singh on THE RIDDLING REAVER | Judith Zissman on RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE | Ramona Lyons on PARABLE OF THE SOWER | Jessamyn West on the MARS TRILOGY | Flourish Klink on DOOMSDAY BOOK | Matthew Battles on THE INTEGRAL TREES | Tom Nealon on CLAY’S ARK | Sara Ryan on SARAH CANARY | Gordon Dahlquist on CONSIDER PHLEBAS | Alex Brook Lynn on VURT | Miranda Mellis on STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND | Nicholas Rombes on RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH | Adelina Vaca on NEUROMANCER | Marc Weidenbaum on AMERICAN FLAGG! | Peggy Nelson on VIRTUAL LIGHT | Michael Grasso on WILD PALMS.
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