Reading Time: 1 Min.
Circus poster, 1890 from the Library of Congress As a queer girl growing up in small-town Scotland, I’ve always been attracted to stories about characters who don’t fit in. Better yet: those whose strangeness is their source of power. My debut novel, Freakslaw , opens with an epigraph from The Craft: “We are the weirdos, mister.” It’s what one of the teen girl witches says to the bus driver, when he tries to warn them to be careful of any peculiar types that lurking in the woods. That line has always stuck with me. In a world that’s terrified of outsiders and encourages normalcy at every turn, what does it mean to align yourself with the freaks from the outset? Freakslaw tells the story of a traveling funfair whose inhabitants are all misfits of one kind or another, and take great joy in being so. Whenever the world rankles at their existence, they refuse to make themselves smaller. When I wrote this book, I wanted to talk about the ways in which difference is not something to be overcome—smoothed out and shaped into a more palatable form—but itself a source of triumph and thriving. As the narrator of freakdom bible Geek Love makes clear: “You must have wished a million times to be normal.” “No.” “No?” “I’ve wished I had two heads. Or that I was invisible. I’ve wished for a fish’s tail instead of legs. I’ve wished to be more special.” “Not normal?” “Never.” Here are 7 novels about brilliant freaks: Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. Submit YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here. Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis It’s November 2008 when the monster dogs arrive in Manhattan by helicopter. Biomechanically engineered by a mad Prussian surgeon, these dogs walk upright, dine […]
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Reading Time: 1 Min. Fantasy and science fiction readers are naturally open to the unexpected, and they like new takes
Reading Time: 1 Min. The first thing that strikes you about Mia Farrow in Jen Silverman’s “The Roommate,” now at
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