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Book ReviewGEEK LOVE by Katherine DunnI first ran across this book at a flea market in Memphis several years ago (it came out around '90 or so). The title drew my eye, naturally: GEEK LOVE. According to the dust jacket sell text, it was a novel about circus freaks and it sounded quite interesting. I didn't pick it up at the time, nor did I pick it up over the next several years. Occasionally I'd stumble across a review or a reference to it, or a friend would recommend the book to me; finally, I got a copy and gave it a read. It probably holds the record for the book I've looked forward to reading for the longest time before actually reading it. Having read it, I'm glad I did. It's a very good book. In brief, it chronicles the lives of the Binewski family, owners of a traveling midway who specialize in the freak show. Papa & Lil Binewski hit on the idea of breeding their own freaks, by having Lil take a variety of drugs during pregnancy to spur deformities. Yes, this is a work of the grotesque. It takes a strong stomach and a willingness to accept absurdity to really enjoy it. Dunn's writing is terrific. Partway through the novel, I came to the realization that she is a better writer than I am; I spent the rest of the book reading with two minds. Part of me read the book as I would read any other, while another part of me paid attention to the way she was writing and the things she was doing, usually in awestruck admiration for all the things she found the time to say that I never take the time to write. She's good, better than me, and there are very few writers I'd say that about. Call it ego, if you will, but if nothing else accept it as flattery: I think Katherine Dunn is a terrific writer. The book is told from the viewpoint of Olympia Binewski, an albino bald hunchback dwarf. She relates the rise of her brother Arturo from limbless freak to cult messiah, intercutting her relation of past events with the chronicle of her obsessive observation of her daughter, who has no idea of her true parentage. Along the way, Dunn presents a variety of freaks who are not members of the Binewski clan and whom the 'normal' world wouldn't consider as freaks if they saw them on the streets. Some of these beggar belief (such as the hard-bitten journalist who sells maggot-ridden body parts to Arturo's devout followers) but in the context of the Binewski Fabulon midway they don't break the mood. In summation, GEEK LOVE is a terrific book well worth seeking out. I don't believe it was ever printed in paperback though I could be wrong; the hardcover I bought from a book dealer was selling for $30. If you find it, count yourself lucky and be prepared to spend many hours in the hands of an exceptional storyteller. Writer ProfileJames EllroySince this issue has gotten started on a literary bent, I might as well continue the theme while the minutes tick away by telling you about one of the best writers I know of. James Ellroy began his career writing mysteries, novels that had a restless edge of deviant weirdness and a fetishistic noir sensibility. He achieved real notoriety with his novel THE BLACK DAHLIA, a fictitious exploration of an infamous murder case from 1940s Los Angeles. From there, he moved forward inexorably through time by means of a series of novels chronicling the unseen worlds of Los Angeles from the 1940s to the 1960s. As he did so, he emerged from the ghetto of "Mystery Fiction" to success as a critically-acclaimed author of plain old "Fiction." His most recent book, AMERICAN TABLOID, is the first of a trilogy chronicling a larger world: American history, seen from the seamy side, going from 1960 up to about 1977 or so. AMERICAN TABLOID is the story of the Kennedy assassination, and like his other novels it includes a handful of characters from earlier books, chronicling their progression or (more commonly) disintegration over time. One of the most interesting things about Ellroy is that with each novel two elements of his writing have progressed noticably and dramatically: his style, and the characters whom he writes about. In terms of style, Ellroy has moved from a dense, information-packed style typical of the noir crime novel to something far more impressive: a rapid-fire, slang-laden staccato stream-of-consciousness form of writing that can be hard to get your head around. A typical (of today) Ellroy passage quoted verbatim follows; the all-capitals are his: The hallway, the kitchen, there-- A clinch: his hands groping, hers grabbing knives. Slow-motion numb--I couldn't move. Shock-still frozen, look: Knives down--in his back, in his neck--twisted in hilt-deep. Bone cracks--Glenda dug in--two hands blood-wet. Miciak thrashing AT HER-- Two more knives snagged--Glenda stabbing blind. Miciak clawing the rack, up with a cleaver. I stumbled in close--numb legs--smell the blood-- He stabbed, missed, lurched into the knife rack. She stabbed--his back, his face--blade jabs ripped his cheeks out. Gurgles/screeches/whines--Miciak dying loud. Knife handles sticking out at odd angles--I threw him down, twisted him, killed him. Glenda--no screams, this look: SLOW, I've been here before. (from WHITE JAZZ, 1992) In terms of characters, his early novels typically chronicled that noir staple, the rough-edged cop or detective who was still on the side of justice and all that is good and true and worth loving. But as Ellroy wrote each novel, the characters moved more and more away from the 'good and true' and more towards the flat-out corrupt and depraved. The protagonists of his most recent novel, AMERICAN TABLOID, are bad guys, pure and simple. They're mobsters, psycho cops, obsessive thrill-seeking military nuts, and every damn one of them is as crooked, corrupt, violent, and vicious as could be. Not a single one is out to follow some code of honor; they are the leg-breakers and the hit-men, the street-level losers and drifters who take the orders of the mob or Hoover or whoever. His latest novels tell the tales of those who do the dirty work and feel no guilt about doing so. Ellroy himself has said that he wants to take crime fiction and give it back to the bad guys, letting them be the stars of the book with no redeeming moral force to bludgeon the reader with a pat ending: "I want my readers to have an ambiguous response to my characters. I want my readers to identify with my characters on the level of their hidden sexual agendas. I want my readers to say, 'Man, what a blast it would be to go back to 1952 and beat up faggots.' Then I want them to realize, 'Oh, am I really thinking that?' In AMERICAN TABLOID, I wanted people to think 'Yeah, what a fuckin' blast, let's whack out John F. Kennedy.' I think crime fiction at its best is touching the fire and getting your hand burned." (from an interview in The Armchair Detective, vol. 28 no. 3) Ellroy is one of my favorite writers. Along with H.P. Lovecraft, I'd credit him as my most substantial inspiration. Where HPL has influenced my attitudes towards writing as an ideal, the work of publishing, and life in general, Ellroy has specifically influenced the way I approach the craft of writing. His books are amazing, awe-inspiring things that leave me gasping like a fish on the beach. Check out anything by him; you won't be disappointed. Book ReviewBLUEBEARD: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF GILLES DE RAIS by Leonard WolfGilles de Rais has been a small but recurrent presence in my life for years. In a strangely synchronistic manner, I've run across references to de Rais many times, and rarely in a context where I'd expect to find him. Who is Gilles de Rais? In the 1400s, he was the Marshal of France, one of the wealthiest men of his time, an educated and literate noble, the lieutenant and right-hand-man of Joan of Arc, and one of the worst molesters and murderers of children known to history. He was also the inspiration for the legend of Bluebeard, the story of the man who forbids his new wife to visit a locked room--which contains the corpses of his previous wives, each of whom opened the room against his orders. Gilles de Rais' life has nothing to do with the story of Bluebeard, and exceeds it tremendously for violence and evil. In brief, Gilles de Rais was eventually tried and executed for raping and murdering children. How many? No one knows, but conservative estimates start at one hundred and fifty; it may well be two or three times that many. For miles around his chateaus, the peasants knew what was going on--they couldn't miss the fact that dozens of their own children disappeared every year. It was said of one of his castles, "They eat children there." How de Rais descended from his noble station, from his valiant battles with Joan of Arc, to the depths of depravity he reached is not known. It is known that he retained the services of alchemists and diabolists, seeking the Philosopher's Stone to restore his swiftly-dwindling fortunes. But his taste for raping and murdering young boys was something within him, something that no one yet understands. BLUEBEARD is a straightforward, scholarly biography of de Rais. A great many legends and falsehoods have arisen about de Rais, and he has been the subject of numerous fictionalizations and novels. Wolf's book attempts to set the record straight, and it does so admirably. The next issue of this zine will most likely contain an essay I'm planning to write in the very near future on the four great absurdities of Gilles de Rais; as for this book review, suffice it to say that BLUEBEARD is a truthful and sobering look at a man who has passed into legend, and remains frustratingly inexplicable. That his life offers such a contrast between nobility, creativity, and religious fervor on the one hand and depravity, diabolism, and violence on the other hand serves only to ensure that de Rais will remain a compelling figure as the years roll by. BLUEBEARD is the best-written and least-sensational look at this fascinating and repulsive man that I've found. Previous Issue | Next Issue
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