Katherine Dunn

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. There's 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. As 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. Family values will never be the same.

A previously unpublished novel of the reflections of a deeply scarred and reclusive woman, from the cult icon Katherine Dunn, the author of Geek Love. Sally Gunnar has been in love, has been mad, has been an agent of destruction, has been spurned; and now she has retreated from the world. She lives in isolation in her small house, where her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. From her comfortable perch, she broods over her deepest regrets: her wayward, weed-hazy college days; her blighted romance with a scornful poet; a tragically comic accident involving a paper cutter; a suicide attempt; and her decision to ultimately relinquish a conventional life.Colorful, crass, and profound, Toad is Katherine Dunn’s ode to her time as a student at Reed College, filled with the same keen observations, taboo-shirking verve, and singular characters that made Geek Love a cult classic. Through the perceptive Sally, a fish out of water among a cadre of eccentric, privileged young people, we meet Sam, an unwashed collector of other people’s stories; Carlotta, a free spirit who nevertheless fails to escape the deception of marriage; and Rennel, a shallow, self-obsessed philosophy student. With sly self-deprecation and mordant wit, Sally recounts their misadventures, up to the tragedy that tore them apart.Through it all, Toad demonstrates Dunn’s genius for black humor and irony, her ecstatic celebration of the grotesque. Daring and bizarre, Toad is a brilliant precursor to the book that would make Dunn a misfit hero—even fifty-some years after it was written, it’s a refreshing take on the lives of young outsiders treading the delicate lines between isolation and freedom, love and insanity, hatred and friendship.

Muchos ven en Olympia Binewski un monstruo: es enana, albina, jorobada. Sin embargo, nada hay menos monstruoso que amar. Y Olympia ama a Al y Lil, porque diseñaron cada una de sus malformaciones. Ama a Chick, su hermano pequeño, por su bondad infinita y su ingenuidad sin mácula. Ama a Elly y a Iphy, las siamesas, las más bellas y virtuosas pianistas. Ama a Arturo, el chico que nació con aletas allí donde debiera tener extremidades, más que a nadie en este mundo. Ama a Miranda, pese a que ésta no sabe que salió de su vientre. Tanto la ama que la seguirá allá donde vaya para que nada le falte. Ama a la señora Lick aunque sabe que no debe, aunque invierte su fortuna en corregir a los que son como ella. Los ama tanto que haría lo que fuese por protegerlos. Y a aquellos que la llaman monstruo, que la saltan con la mirada o le disparan atrincherados en aparcamientos, a esos también podría aprender a amarlos. Un libro lleno de amor aunque terrorífico, que sacudió el panorama literarios y se erigió novela de culto. La favorita de Kurt Cobain, Tim Burton y Douglas Coupland.

Here is the slim, stunning debut novel from the acclaimed author of Geek Love. Attic follows a young woman named Kay who has joined a cult-like organization that sells magazine subscriptions in small towns. When Kay tries to cash a customer’s bad check, she lands in jail, and Dunn’s visceral prose gives us a vivid, stream-of-consciousness depiction of the space in which she’s held. As Kay comes to know the other inmates, alliances and rivalries are formed, memories are recounted, and lives are changed. Based on Katherine Dunn’s own formative coming-of-age experiences, Attic was critically lauded when it was first published in 1970. Now, it stands as an extraordinary, indelible work from one of our most celebrated writers.