62 pages 2 hours read

Katherine Dunn

Geek Love

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1989

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Book 3, Chapters 17-19

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 3: “Spiral Mirror”

Book 3, Chapter 17 Summary: “Popcorn Pimp”

Elly and Iphy move into their own trailer, despite Lil’s objections. Lil moves Oly’s things into the twins’ compartment, but Oly prefers to continue sleeping in the cupboard below the kitchen sink.

Elly asks Oly to take a note to one of the judges of the carnival pageant, though Iphy desperately begs Oly not to. Oly delivers the note to the young balding man. Oly sees him again later as he is exiting the twins’ trailer in the middle of the night. The man seems strangely upset and confused. He says, “I think I did something…wrong. One of them didn’t want it” (203).

Oly worries that the man murdered the twins, so she enters the trailer. Elly and Iphy are washing up in their bathroom. Iphy is extremely upset that Elly has “sold” their virginity to the man, which Iphy did not want. Elly had thought that the young man would be “good to start with,” though she now thinks that perhaps they should have charged him more, since “[a] virginity like [theirs] would be worth a lot” (205). The twins worry that Arty will find out about their sexual encounter, but Oly tells them Arty has no right to judge, since he has been having sex with norm women.