The whole Miss Lick saga adds nothing to the book and drags it down. But the climax of the novel gets barely a page and leaves readers scratching their heads.Ī bigger editing problem is the whole frame story of the now-adult Oly and her quest to save her secret daughter’s (literal) tail. She’ll write an entire paragraph about Miss Lick cooking popcorn or Chick cleaning Arty’s tank. Dunn doesn’t think twice about spending four or five pages describing, say, the horse Arty has lopped off at the knees. I was also disappointed in the way Chick’s inferno was described. While the overall effect of the novel is pretty marvelous, on the sentence level, Dunn is sometimes a hack. Often, she makes a nifty turn of phrase, only to bury it with another paragraph of useless description and clunky metaphor. In that regard, Geek Love, feels epic and important.ĭunn needs an editor with a big red pen and the balls to call her on the carpet when her writing gets way to precious. To say that Geek Love is often unsettling is a rank understatement, but the book holds its dark thrall not by describing the physical deformities embodied by the characters, but by forcing that unflinching view inward. To quote the blurb on the back cover, this book “throws its sulfurous light” on the notion of what’s normal and what’s freakish, not just in terms of outward appearance, but in our heads as well. The story of the Binewski children and the fiery demise of everything they know is mind-blowing. Aside from dosing his willing wife with bizarre drug cocktails in order to sire a brood of freaks to populate his carnival, Al seems like a model father at the beginning of the book, but our view of him changes as the book progresses. I also admire the way the reader’s ideas about Al and Crystal Lil as parents changes slowly. P, both of whom are hard to stomach for different reasons, and you have a virtuoso ensemble cast. Throw in lesser characters like the Bag Man and Dr. Dunn could have easily fell into trite cliché when she has the two conjoined girls bicker and fight, but their personalities are rich enough that it’s never an issue.

Elly and Iphy, the Siamese twins, are also done well, especially after they blossom into sexual maturity. His slow seizure of power behind the scenes at the Binewski Fabulon and his exploitation of his followers after the inception of the Aruturan amputation cult are handled perfectly. Arturo the Aqua Boy is deftly handled, a megalomaniacal little turd whose true gift is not his freakish nature, but his incredible powers of manipulation. Geek Love has a handful of the most memorable characters you’ll ever find. On the other hand, I thought it was sloppily edited, and Dunn’s prose ran the spectrum from sublime to clunky and ridiculous. On the one hand, it had a more profound impact on me than books-even some truly great ones-usually do. I had a schizophrenic reaction to this book.

Geek love cover