|
Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the (revamped) 2019 Reading List! I am continuing the trend of contemporary female authors, this time focusing on another recommendation: Katherine Dunn and her 1989 novel Geek Love. This work has taken on legendary status among a certain type of cult-ish book lover, and I had known about it for years but never sat down to read it until now. And I have to say this is one of the best books I have encountered in this portion of the experiment, right up there with The Secret History and Wise Blood from last year.
Since I’m taking more of a “review” tack this year I will eschew most of the plot points in the hope that readers who haven’t discovered this gem will want to spiral through the tale. But a quick summary: this book takes place over two separate time periods but covers the same family, the Binewskis and their traveling “Carnival Fabulon.” In trying to save their business, the family resorts to some unconventional and dangerous means for birthing “freak” children which then become the main acts of the show, eventually bringing about its downfall. Now I want to get down into just what this novel gets so right. This is one of the best-constructed novels I’ve ever encountered. There is not a sentence out of place and this feels like a story that took a decade to write (which it did; various pieces of it were published in literary magazines throughout the Eighties). Even the few things that jumped out at me, such as an adverb here or there or a sentence ending with a preposition didn’t bother me as the writing is so phenomenal. This helps with the major themes, which off the top of my head could be: the body and its perceptions, the concept of “freaks” and “norms,” cults, carnivals, technology, telekinesis, the list is endless. And they are all covered in depth and with some of the best drawn characters I’ve ever read. Each individual of the family brings their own drama to the story, and each has a role to play in its undoing. And while there is a fair amount of content that may turn people off (incest is a theme that hovers if not technically present), I found that the more outrageous the plot became the more I enjoyed it. I want to just briefly stop at the “freak” theme that I felt had reverberations in the sense that LGBTQ people are finally gaining acceptance from “norm” society. I also can’t help but see the continued media obsession with beauty paralleled with the later parts of the story, in which the narrator Oly works out a plan to save her own daughter from someone she fears will change her. This book was miles ahead of its time in commenting on this and I think it deserves a hell of a lot of credit for that. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone wanting to know how to capture the most important elements of the novel. Next I’m going to take on another recent book written by a woman (Julie Shumacher’s 2014 novel Dear Committee Members) before I pivot into science fiction territory with my manuscript rewrite. Thanks as always for reading!
2 Comments
Hello there readers and welcome as I finally get to another series on this here blog I’ve been struggling with for years. After working on the initial blog post (still entitled “What’s a writer for?”) for months and seeing no end in sight (but there are gonna be tons of links!) I have decided to try something different for this series. And that is, shorter pieces focusing on the writing life and its challenges, daily affairs, and all it entails. I mean, that was initially what this blog was going to be all about, but it sort of got hijacked by the reading list and my “how to write a book” project. So without further ado, here is the first installment in the Writing Life.
I’m writing a book about climate change. It’s not like I haven’t said this before, but I think it deserves its own post because it’s pretty much all I have worked on for a solid year. And the entire thing needs to be re-written, because the perspective is wrong. By next year I might have a solid draft to show people. But until then, I can talk about it. So, why climate change? If you somehow haven’t heard about it by now, the IPCC reports essentially spell out what is rapidly becoming the challenge of my generation: climate crisis and how little time we have to do anything about it. While this issue has waffled over my lifetime as something Americans care about, and then don’t (remember #climategate? No, I’m not going to link to that), it seems that we have reached a relative tipping point with legislation like the Green New Deal reaching massive audiences and people my age realizing this is going to affect the rest of their lives. It’s important, and if you have been following me online for any length of time you’ll know how much I scream into the void about it to little result. This is my attempt to rectify that in what I feel is my greatest capacity: writing. Specifically, a story about climate change, how it may be manipulated into use via geo-engineering and how that may lead to an utter division of the planet. And that just scratches the surface of this beast, which also tackles AI, religion, technology, cloning, environmental catastrophe, time travel (can you see why it is kind of a mess at this point?), and other stuff. Oh yeah, journalism too. Cuz that’s what I’ve devoted a lot of my time over the years, and informs a lot of this book. And as my editor stated, this book pushes a lot of buttons. I come from a conservative religious background that ultimately didn’t take, and I want to examine it through my fiction. But I also want to examine a culture that allows the generational selling out we’ve witnessed via the climate crisis, and how it’s up to us to do something about it. Again, in the real world we have maybe a decade to reduce emissions to the point where human survival is a possibility. In my novel, that is not quite a foregone conclusion, and for the hell of it I will give away a major plot point in the hope it may interest you. I conclude that the only thing that may wake up the populace is the sudden loss of half the landmass of Florida. Again, sitting here reading this you may not believe it. But the science tells us enough ice is melting rapidly that something like that could happen, and in my lifetime. Speaking of my editor, she was also right to point out that this is merely one way to get involved. Contact your representatives, create your own art about it, get involved in the protest movement that is growing by the day, and try to use as little fossil fuel as possible. I know it sounds hyperbolic but this is truly the challenge of our generation, and we need all hands on deck. Thanks for indulging me as I shine a light on my manuscript, and I hope you’ll one day be able to read it as I publish it. Some other topics I have lined up for this series include: failure and why we should seek it out, how to learn to listen to others (i.e. editors), time management, and some other things. And of course I’m still working on that (initial) blog post about what writers are for, which takes on new meaning by the hour of teh #Drumpf tweet. On that note, thanks for reading and writing. |
AuthorJohn Abraham is a published author and freelance journalist who lives in the Twin Cities with his wife Mary and their cat. He is writing a speculative dystopian novel and is seeking representation and a publisher. Archives
September 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed