The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child's need for exactly that sanctuary. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.Ĭan we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark saying, 'Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right.' The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is.

“It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. After a hiatus of almost two decades, the author of Attic and Truck has produced a novel that everyone will be talking about, a brilliant, suspenseful, heartbreaking tour de force. I want those who have a choice of tortures and pick me.'' This raw, shocking view of the human condition, a glimpse of the tormented people who live on the fringe, makes readers confront the dark, mad elements in every society. A spellbinding orator, Arty uses his ability to establish a religious cult, in which he preaches redemption through the sacrifice of body partsdigits and limbs.``I want the losers who know they're losers. jagged rippling jealousy.'' Yet he has the capacity to inspire adoration, especially that of Oly, who is his willing slave, and who arranges to bear his child, Miranda, who appears ``norm,'' but has a tiny tail. Arty is a monsterpower hungry, evil, malicious, consumed by ``dark, bitter meanness and.

Eventually their family consists of Arty, aka Arturo the Aqua Boy, born with flippers instead of limbs, who performs swimming inside a tank and soon learns how to manipulate his audience Electra and Iphigenia, Siamese twins and pianists the narrator, Oly and Fortunato, also called the Chick, who seems normal at birth, but whose telekinetic powers become apparent just as his brokenhearted parents are about to abandon him. ``What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?'' muses Lily. Art and Lily, owners of Binewski's Fabulon, a traveling carnival, decide to breed their own freak show by creating genetically altered children through the use of experimental drugs. Dunn's vivid, energetic prose, her soaring imagination and assured narrative skill fuse to produce an unforgettable tale. This audacious, mesmerizing novel should carry a warning: ``Reader Beware.'' Those entering the world of carnival freaks described by narrator Olympia Binewski, a bald, humpbacked albino dwarf, will find no escape from a story at once engrossing and repellent, funny and terrifying, unreal and true to human nature.

Geek love by katherine dunn