I've never read anything by Gowdy before, but I do remember buying this book. It came highly recommended to me by a friend. In university, I harboured a strange fascination (and obsession) with what I placed under the idea of the Carnivalesque (Bakhtin-style). I watched Freaks often, at least once a month. I read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn and thought it was a brillant masterpiece of real human drama. I was obsessed with Rabelais and did all kinds of weird research on side shows and travelling circuses. Weird, I guess, but also completely fascinating. This book tickled the same spot that found all of that interesting.
In "We So Seldom Look on Love", Gowdy explores, in a series of short stories, little pockets of freakishness. Each story focuses on one character whose life is changed by some profound physical affectation. Mothers with the skin of a lizard. A Necrophiliac whose heart is broken by cadavers. A man who kills his second head. A woman who grew up with a second set of legs named Sue. Her prose is very normal, matter of fact. By normal, I don't mean not that good, not that bad. I mean, it's not extreme or lush or visceral. It deliberately tells a commonplace story in the most plain language possible. This lends itself well to stories about life in small town america, and the stories are told in a very human, poignant and expressive way. Preconceptions about marriage, familial relationships, surgeries, and even sexual identities are calmly and precisely challenged.
Altogether, I found the book uncomfortable in a pleasant way. I have another Gowdy book in the collection and I'm looking forward to cracking it open some time down the road. I have the feeling that settling into a Gowdy book will always feel like I'm patting myself on the back.
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