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I joined a gay book club recently. (No, the books aren’t gay books, the guys are gay and we read all different kinds of books.) I had my first meeting earlier this week and we discussed last month’s book Geek Love. I’ll pat myself on the back and say I was the only one in the group who finished the book. I’ll pat myself further and say I was responsible for convincing several guys to finish the book, despite their misgivings about its darkness and depravity.

(Spoilers ahead)

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is one of the most bizarre and disturbing books I’ve ever read. Because of its uniqueness, I really enjoyed it. The story centers around a family of mutant circus children. Two parents decide they want to start their own circus and they imbibe various radioisotopes and poisons during childbirth to produce freak children. They sire Arturo (Arty) the flipper boy, Electra (Elly) and Iphigenia (Iphy) the siamese twins, Olympia (Oly) the hunchback albino dwarf (and narrator), and finally Fortunato (Chick) the telekinetic.

Oly narrates the story during two time periods. In the first she is a child and we watch as the story of her freak family unfolds. In the second time period, Oly is a middle-aged woman who lives in the same house with her mother and daughter, neither of whom knows Oly’s true identity. Her daughter, Miranda, was given up for adoption some twenty years earlier, and Oly’s maternal obsession with Miranda’s well-being forms the basis of this narrative timeframe.

This book is dark and twisted to an extreme. Sure it’s unsettling that the parents have consciously chosen to create children that are freaks of nature. But that’s not even the most twisted part. Disturbing issues of family abuse amongst the siblings arise. They are familiar problems that many families face. But putting them in the context of a physically distorted family, these familiar developmental issues are amplified and grotesque. They become huge emotional burdens with which the reader must cope.

The eldest child Arty slowly takes over the circus over the course of their childhood and teen years. This causes the parents to fade from life. They lose their zest for life, and become shells of their former themselves. This was a great illustration of what many parents feel when their children no longer need them.

Arty hates his siblings and especially seems to hate the “norms” (anyone who isn’t a freak). He also discovers the power of his freakishness and his ability to proselytize and captivate his audience. This realization of his oratory power eventually leads him to establish a cult of norms (Arturism). People who have given up on life join with a willingness to amputate themselves down to their torsos to seek escape from their painful lives. Arty gets so drunk on power and control, that he maliciously strikes out at his siblings. In one instance, his telekinetic uber-powerful brother kicks Arty’s butt. In another, Arty uses lobotomy to silence the twin who hates and distrusts him. This gross act of abuse eventually leads to the entire family’s destruction. (I won’t spoil that part).

Oly, our narrator and main character, struggles with something all of us struggle with as children: the need for acceptance. Her father always sees her as “less than” because her oddity is the least marketable. The twins disregard her, and Arty relies on her but does not love her. Chick is the only one who ever seems to show any true love or affection for Oly. But while she feels affection for Chick, it’s not his praise and acceptance she craves. She only desires the love of those who do not offer it to her.

This character trait carries over to her adult life as she becomes involved with Ms. Lick, a rich heiress who mimics Arty in many ways. Ms. Lick pays beautiful young to be mutilated (removal of breasts, scarring of face, burning of flesh) so that they will be relieved from the distractions of “the hunger of men,” and thus be able to fulfill on their true intellectual potential. Oly initially investigates and gets close to Ms. Lick to prevent her from mutilating Miranda. But Oly finds herself drawn to Ms. Lick’s twisted altruism, no doubt because of Ms. Lick’s resemblance to Arty (mutilation as a path to salvation). Thus, Oly struggles to find acceptance her whole life, eventually experiencing two tragic ends to her childhood and adulthood.

Besides the emotional and physical abuse, the mutilation, and even murder, Dunn also explores the stomach-wrenching topic of incest. This becomes Oly’s resort for solving her loneliness. Through means by which I’ll leave for you to discover by reading the book, Oly manages to become impregnated by a family member, hoping this will finally bond her with this person. The plan backfires and she has to give Miranda up for adoption to protect her daughter. Oly never finds true happiness. She is always the outsider struggling to find love. She is an incredibly tragic figure who is powerless to change her fate.

The thing I hear a lot of people say is that for the first 100 pages, it’s nearly impossible to like any of the characters, or feel a connection to them. This makes it difficult to “get into” the story. But, at about that 100 page mark, you start to develop a modicum of compassion for a few of the characters, especially Oly. While you still hate the things they do (or the things they don’t do in instances when they could act to stop bad things from happening), the characters become real and pitiable.

Ultimately I doubt you that you will finish the book and be happy or fulfilled. You will most certainly appreciate the themes that were explored and the distinctiveness of of the characters. But it is a difficult, nauseating story that will most likely challenge you and your literary comfort zones.