Jamie Iredell’s The Book of Freaks embraces the technical implications of its title, organized as an alphabetized collection of character studies, each focused on extracting the concept of “freak,” of what makes a freak, instead of falling to pre-assumed tropes. These aren’t circus sideshow freaks or daytime TV talk show freaks. These are “Celebrities,” “Girls,” “The Have Nots,” “People Named Spencer and Their Wives,” and on the list goes, each story simultaneously reinventing and often impressively contradicting the crafted expectations of what exactly constitutes an Iredell freak.
The collection is smart to not take itself too seriously. While a story like “After Detox” touches upon the serious issue of alcoholism (“At lunch, detox-man walks across the street to the sports bar. At first he orders chicken wings and Cokes. Then he replaces the Coke with Budweiser. Then he replaces the chicken wings with Makers Mark” pg 5) a story like “Autofellate” shortly follows to bring the reader back to a knowing grin: “In this bar a guy autofellates on a bed of nails. Naturally, the guy’s penis is on the large side. You kind of forget about the nails” (pg 10). Notice, however, the consistent focus on appearances. This common thread unifies the collection. Behind the freakish veneer, we are all just humans too consumed with appearances, far more interested in penis size than a bed of nails.
Perhaps the strongest—or at least most unique (which “unique” would imply “strong” in a collection so insistent on promoting freakishness)—aspect of the collection is Iredell’s use of meta elements to approach the idea of the book itself (Iredell’s book, and perhaps too, the book as a physical object). The standard parts of any book—the typography notes, acknowledgments, blurbs, copyright information, and dedication—do not bookend the collection as would be expected. Instead these sections are blended within the collection, dropped alphabetically, and treated with no more pomp than every other page. The book itself becomes symbolic of its content.
Though the definition of Iredell’s freak remains malleable, the author does approach specificity in the story titled simply “Freaks”: “In recent years Freak has been used in jocular circles to refer to one’s friends and loved-ones, as in, You’re such a freak. As such, Freak can be defined as nearly any and all humans as they exist on Earth.” (pg 54). The Book of Freaks is not as much an encyclopedia of cultural outsiders as it is an encyclopedia of humanity. In Iredell’s world we are all freaks.
Purchase:
From Future Tense Publishing (the publisher)
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Jamie Iredell
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