Instead it is a novel about the original definition of the word - the sideshow geek. Al and Crystal Lil Binewski with some illegal help from radioisotopes, amphetemines and arsenic design their own sideshow of geek children: Arty who is limbless except for a few fins, Olympia is a hunchbacked, albino dwarf and Iphy and Elly are the beautiful and gracile siamese twins. Finally, there is normal Chick, or at least that is how they refer to him, but he is probably the most astounding one of all as he is telekinetic and can also make people's pain go away. This comes in handy when he becomes the sideshow doctor's anesthesiologist at the tender age of 10.
Those are the children that lived. The ones that didn't are still a part of the sideshow, living on in jars to be stared at by the sideshow customers.
This novel is written as a letter to Olympia's daughter Miranda who doesn't know that she is a part of the Binewski family. It is a way to explain her history; why Miranda is the way she is and why she was dropped off to live as an orphan at a nunnery.
It takes place partly in the past, as Olympia and her brothers and sisters grow up traveling the country and partly in the here and now, while Olympia is compiling the letter and the paraphanalia that is left from her previous life as proof to her daughter of all of the things she tells her in the letter.
For example: Miranda's father is none other than her Uncle Arty. No fear! There is no incest here. The sperm was implanted in Olympia's egg telikinetically by younger brother Chick.
Arty not only spawned Miranda, but his own religion. More realistically, a cult - and cult-members followed the side-show throughout the country and went to Arty's shows. The basis of his religion? Well... I don't want to give everything away!
Let's just say this is one of those books where throughout the book all you can do is wonder where the author came up with the ideas. This book is probably one of the most interesting, most bizarre and freakiest books I've read in a very long time.
Oh - and the title of the book? I think it is about the love this family had for each other. Sometimes it was weird, sometimes it was disturbing, sometimes you wondered whether there was love at all. But in the end, this story is about the love Olympia had for her daughter and how Olympia tryed to save her daughter from what she percieved was an act that would truly cut Miranda off from her Binewski heritage. Geek love or not, that just sounds like the love of a Mother to me.
Rating: 9 / 10
ISBN: 9780394569024
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Edition: 1st Edition