Katherine Dunn’s “Geek Love” and My Unfiltered Thoughts on Normality, Family &

In what might as well be a break from tradition, I have decided to write about a book right after I finished reading it.

This is something I’d stopped doing after studying — and consequently being intimidated by — literary theories in the university.

I felt that, after all is said and done by literary canons leading all the way back to Plato, I have absolutely nothing significant to contribute.

So instead of passing off this blog as a book review, I will present this more as a reaction paper.

— My raw, honest, and immediate reaction to Katherine Dunn’s “Geek Love.”

I came across it in one of the many book recommendations I’d read online.

At the time, I was in the middle of Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita.”

The 400-page novel took me a lot more time to read than was necessary, because my copy was heavily annotated (and I also found myself digging even deeper on certain characters and themes).

This book, but especially the scene of Satan’s Ball, reawakened in me a ravenous appetite for fiction once more.

In my one-and-a-half years’ stay in Dubai, I can probably count all the fiction I’d read with one hand.

That is, they didn’t add up to much.

I was mostly reading non-fiction — the news, travel guides, spiritual reading books — cute childish attempts at becoming a better adult.

I didn’t know how badly I missed fiction until “The Master and Margarita” reopened for me an escape from the mundane.

I just had to keep the momentum up, keep that magic realist train chugging.

When I read the first few pages of “Geek Love,” I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the end.

The introductory line in itself already put me off with its use of “geek,” “dreamlets,” and “noggins,” all in one sentence.

Let’s not even start with “geek.”

The only type of geek I knew was the eyeglass-wearing, deodorant-not-wearing admin of a fandom website.

In Katherine Dunn’s novel, a geek refers to circus folk; in what, in this day and age, is usually referred to as a freak; somebody with an abnormality who, instead of being ashamed by it, openly flaunts it, even makes a living out of it.

Admit it, AHS fans. You were thinking it. 

In this novel, there is not one, not two, but a whole family of geeks.

The father is the circus manager, the mother is a retired “wild woman” performer, and the children are products of experiments, deliberately designed to be born with abnormalities.

Arturo is aqua boy, and what he lacks in limbs he makes up for scales and flippers and megalomania.

Electra and Iphigenia are conjoined twins who also happen to be very talented musicians.

Olympia is an albino hunchbacked dwarf with a textbook case of middle child syndrome.

And Fortunato may be a “norm” on the outside but is actually a telekinetic force to be reckoned with.

What could possible go wrong in a family like this?

Turns out, quite a lot.

But without going into unnecessary details (and spoilers — you’d have to read it to get your fabulon ticket’s worth!), I just handpicked some bits and pieces of the story that struck me to the core.

So here it is, in reverse countdown:

Three, just what is normal?

The Binewskis live in a world of their own; so much so that any abnormal behavior they exhibit is accepted by the reader (at least I did) as normal — the Binewski normal.

On the contrary, any conventional behavior struck me as… odd.

For example, Oly and Iphy developing subtly incestuous feelings for Arty did not shock me as much as Al and Crystal Lil’s genuine and indulgent (to a fault) love for their children.

I rationalized the sisters’ feelings as a coping mechanism.

They had to stay with each other or face a world hostile to their abnormalities.

They were safe inside their circus world; they were safe so long as they were together.

But for the Binewski parents who experimented on their unborn babies to sincerely love them was beyond my comprehension.

Early on, I perceived them as scheming, exploitative, and incapable of loving their brood of income-generating experiments; later on, I started doubting first impressions.

It made me realize just how much society dictates what is normal and what is not.

Two, family.

What seemed to be a close-knit, albeit unconventional, family slowly spiraled into dysfunction.

Underneath all that strangeness, all that “that could never possibly happen to me” mentality, lies a cautionary tale of destructive family relationships.

Now that’s something close to my heart.

These past few weeks, I have had terrible first hand experiences of heartbreak, betrayal, and abandonment from people who are supposed to be family.

So I knew where Oly stood having spent half of her life mediating between feuding family members, all the while being taken for granted.

She embodied the novel’s title “Geek Love,” not a 500-Days-of-Summer-esque romantic comedy, but a story of unconditional family love.

Oly might have had moments in her life when she too wavered in her loyalty, but she otherwise lived by “Family is family, right or wrong.”

However, the way things turned out in the end made me question if Oly was right about her “Geek Love.”

Was she her family’s saving grace?

Or did she just prolong their  (Warning: Vague spoiler ahead) inevitable downfall?

One, self-worth. 

IMHO, Oly deserved more attention than what she actually received.

She was an ALBINO, HUNCHBACKED DWARF for heaven’s sake!

If one’s degree of deformity defined one’s status in the circus, then shouldn’t Oly have been the star of the show?

It was her complete lack of self-worth which devalued her in the eyes of her family.

Her blind loyalty and pathetic servitude made for an eye-rolling narrator, but at the same time, her discretion encouraged her siblings to put their confidence and trust in her, so that she was admitted into otherwise closed doors and conversations.

She was safe ground.

She knew the sides of the story better than any other Binewski.

But as far as novel heroines are concerned, Oly was far from lovable.

She had glaring flaws.

Indeed, most of the mistreatment she suffered were really self-inflicted.

It was painful to watch somebody who loved so much to not be loved at all.

And it all came down to self-worth.

Having read “Geek Love” at a time in my life when I am daring to question the cliche “blood is thicker than water,” I found in it an unexpected source of consolation and wisdom.

I was advised more recently to practice detachment for the purpose of healing myself.

Yes, detachment from family, from the people who “will be there for you no matter what,” but who, in my case, are never there when I need them most.

It may sound selfish, but I think after years of being the Oly in my family, it is my turn to put myself first.

That is why today I have decided to break from tradition: both to write about a book with no significant literary contribution and to expose unflattering truths about living in a dysfunctional home.