Over the last few days, I've been reading Claire Oshetsky's new novel Evil Genius. Oshetsky has quickly become one of my favorite contemporary novelists, with Chouette being a personal favorite. So much creativity and borderline whimsicality in service of truly bizarre, cut-to-the- bone stories. Reading Oshetsky feels like glimpsing a perverse truth. In this way, they're quite similar to cult novelist Katherine Dunn, whose novel Geek Love rewired my brain when I read it several years ago. Just a fabulous book!
Both authors work in similar themes, namely:
– perverse/taboo themes (domestic violence, otherness, the urge to mutilation and murder, mental illness)
– women's or gender issues: often, in both, the sexes/genders do not get along, being portrayed as perpetually at odds.
– sociatal norms and pressures: In Evil Genius Celia rebels against domesticity, in Chouette, Tiny rebels against ableist society, choosing love for her daughter over operations to make her "normal". Geek Love, simply because of it's content, explodes norms.
– In both, portrayal of conventionally distasteful subjects in poetic, lyrical prose.
Both are fantastic writers, and these are but a few of the similarities I notice between them…
Would be very surprized if Oshetsky themself has not read Geek Love.
Thoughts?
by cheerfullysardonic
1 Comment
Thanks for the new recommendations! I love Dunns story telling.