Hello, everyone. I am new here and this is my first post. I'd like to recommend Geek Love by Katherine Dunn to those who haven't read it and I'd also love to discuss it with those who have. It was published in the late 80s, and I remember the book making the rounds amongst my circle of friends back in high school, but I never got around to reading it until recently. It has proved to be prophetic in regard to what has happened with the gender movement, and reading it in light of that sometimes gave me chills!

It is about a family of circus performers in which the parents deliberately give their children birth defects so that they will be able to earn a living as "freaks" - but that is not even the part that reminds me so strongly of gender ideology. One of the children goes on to found a cult in which his followers willingly "shed" limbs (have them amputated) in order to achieve some kind of transcendence and move up in the hierarchy of the cult. As you might imagine, it is a pretty bizarre and twisted book and does not end very happily, but it's beautifully written and it is a moving, humanizing meditation on "differentness" in our society.

I'll end with a couple of quotes from it: “There are the those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behaviour and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity.”

Also,

“The truth is always an insult or a joke. Lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone’s comfort.”