No book I've read, before or since, has given me that specific jolt' Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia.

I stood there in the bookstore and my jaw came unhinged.

It made me ashamed to be so utterly normal' Terry Gilliam 'I felt electrocuted when I read that first page with Crystal Lil and her freak brood. Family values will never be the same.Praise for Geek Love'If Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this' Literary Review 'The most romantic novel about love and family I have read. As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the US, inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan, Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins, albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious - and dangerous - asset. (The New York Times Book Review)The Binewskis arex a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). A National Book Award Finalist: This 'wonderfully descriptive' novel from an author with a 'tremendous imagination' tells the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias have bred their own exhibit of human oddities. 'About this title' may belong to another edition of this title.īook Description Paperback. albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family?s most precious?and dangerous?asset.Īs the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins. There?s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan. Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out?with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes?to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. Sort of like Tod Browning's Freaks crossed with David Lynch and John Irving and perhaps George Eliot - the latter for the power of the emotions evoked. An endearing 'little beetle' of a heroine. A museum of sacred monsters that didn't make it. Arturo the Aqua-Boy, who has flippers and an enormous need to be loved.

It's a solipsistic funhouse world that makes 'normal' people seem bland and pitiful. A wild, often horrifying, novel about freaks, geeks and other aberrancies of the human condition who travel together (a whole family of them) as a circus.

Arturo the aqua boy