Geek Love is a novel by American writer Katherine Dunn, published completely by Alfred A. Knopf (a division of Random House) in 1989.

When the business begins to fail, the couple devise an idea to breed their own freak show, using various drugs and radioactive material to alter the genes of their children.

The results are Arturo ("Arty", also known as "Aqua Boy"),[1] a boy with flippers for hands and feet; Electra ("Elly") and Iphigenia ("Iphy"), Siamese twins; Olympia ("Oly"), a hunchbacked albino dwarf; and Fortunato ("Chick"), the normal-looking baby of the family who has telekinetic powers.

The novel takes place in two interwoven[1] time periods: the first deals with the Binewski children's constant struggle against each other through life.

In this cult, Arty persuades people to have their limbs amputated (so that they can be like him) in their search for the principle he calls PIP ("Peace, Isolation, Purity").

Each member moves up in stages, losing increasingly significant chunks of their body, starting with their toes and fingers.

As Arty battles his siblings to maintain control over his followers, competition between their respective freak shows slowly begins to take over their lives.

Dunn has said she remembers when she began writing the book in the late '70s, walking to Portland's Washington Park Rose Garden, contemplating nature versus nurture.

[3] Novelist Karen Russell described the prose as "pyrotechnic medium so far removed from our workaday speech that it feels unfair and inaccurate to call that fire-language 'English'".