First, I just finally realized Charles Manson died. He died months ago and I missed it. Charles Manson is a weird and horrible cultural icon in the U.S. and I’ve known his story for years and yet . . . my Facebook friends must still not be weird enough because not one of them posted about his death. Dammit, I feel so old and square and out of touch because I only heard this today when I finally caught up on Ask a Mortician. Ugh, what kind of morbid freak doesn’t even notice when Charles Manson dies? Epic freak fail.

My second epic freak fail is that I never read Geek Love until this weekend, even though it came out in 1989, exactly the time it would have rocked my world the most. I think I missed it for two reasons: first, my parents were only cool with weird stuff that was “literary” and “educational” and second, this was the year we moved to Japan and I’m pretty sure the first book tour didn’t go that far.

Because my parents only approved of educational weirdness, I spent high school mostly reading Edgar Allan Poe, John Irving, and Kurt Vonnegut. Though I also managed to borrow Laura Palmer’s Diary from a friend and sneak-read a couple of Stephen King novels in those years. Back then I thought it was crazy that my parents wouldn’t let me watch Ghostbusters but they were fine with The Tell Tale Heart or The World According to Garp. (I still kind of think that, and I judge my kids’ reading and viewing on a much different scale.)

I don’t know whether to hate my parents for depriving me of pulp horror classics or thank them for accidentally leading me towards literary horror and weirdness I might never have bothered with, but either way I missed Geek Love entirely until my baby sister (a junior high English teacher) mentioned it while she was visiting last month. Until then I’d thought it was about modern geeks–comic book fans or Star Wars fanatics–not circus geeks. Silly me. But little sis set me straight, and I owe her for it. Even as a crusty middle aged mom type I found it moving and amazing. My teenage self would have made it a holy book, reading it in ritual fashion every year.*

If you also somehow missed Geek Love, it’s  book about classic Freak Show freaks. The story is told by Olympia, a hunchbacked albino dwarf, who’s always been sad that she was the most “normal” child in her family, living to serve her beautiful conjoined sisters and her charismatic flippered oldest brother. That’s the most moving and beautiful theme of the book for me, the idea that what sets you apart and makes you lonely and feared is also the best, most special and amazing thing about you. As Mama Lil Binewski says, “What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?” Even Arty the Aqua Man, the most obvious cult leader/villain, has an amazing gift and heartbreaking humanity that really spoke to me. The most truly villainous character was Ms. Lick, not quite easily normal enough to fit in with the “norms”, but not beautifully weird enough to fit in with true freaks. Living in that between space, not knowing what it meant or should mean, turned her even more sour and strange than Arty ever was and she became the most horrifying villain of the story. And even she deserved some sympathy.

I love it when stories get complicated, when you’re forced to have at least some sympathy and some annoyance at every character; those are the stories that teach me the most about everyday life, even when their characters are much larger than life at first glance. In real life I’ve met not one utter villain nor one complete saint, and so far I’ve met a lot of people. Including, believe it or not, a couple dozen actual murderers. Even a famous one or two. I’ve chatted with them and cleaned their rooms, because money, and because good health insurance ain’t cheap in the U.S.

I’m probably the last grown up on earth to read Geek Love. And I’m probably the last “true crimes” enthusiast to hear that Charles Manson finally died. But I still have feelings about both, dammit, and here they are. Every once in a while I’m cool enough to review something the same year it’s released, but mostly I’m not. There it is. I’m not ashamed to read and review something 15 or 20 years too late. What else did I miss? What else from the 80’s was too “Satanic” for me to watch or read? Tell me what you read and watched, and I’ll tell you whether I managed to sneak-read that one or whether it’s still on my “to do” list. 😉

*I once knew a guy who read the Lord of the Rings this way. Every single year since his early teens. I wish I could say he was cool because I’ve read those books at least three times, but he was not cool. He was kind of weird and douchy. Also, he never really read the Silmarillion and I totally did. I out-geeeked him by a million points there and I still don’t know whether that’s the best or the worst thing about me.