Watzek Goes ‘Geek’

The Horror of Normalcy: Katherine Dunn, Geek Love, and Cult Literature is on display in Watzek Library through August 2017.

The exhibition explores Dunn’s cult classic Geek Love and the reaction it elicited from readers through the personal and literary artifacts. The exhibit is curated by Michael Mirabile, visiting assistant professor of English, with assistance from Sydney Owada BA ’19, who is majoring in English.    

In 2015, Lewis & Clark Special Collections and Archives staff worked with Dunn to acquire and process her collection. Lewis & Clark now has early versions and translated copies of Dunn’s novels Attic (1970), Truck (1971), and Geek Love (1989), as well as notes, fan mail, and correspondence with and critiques by other cult authors such as Bret Easton Ellis, Gus Van Sant, and Stephen King. In addition to original material, the exhibition includes Dunn’s collection of Geek Love fan art as weird and macabre as the novel itself. Dunn passed away on May 11, 2016, at age 70, from complications of lung cancer.