The Book of Freaks [Paperback]

Jamie Iredell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1892061392 | ISBN-13: 978-1892061393

Fiction. Like an expanded Dictionary of Received Ideas, THE BOOK OF FREAKS takes its subject matter from everyday life. Both hilarious and poker-faced in equal measures, this faux encyclopedia categorizes mundanities and renders them starkly unexpected. From circus freaks, to nationalities, to you and everyone you've ever met, THE BOOK OF FREAKS points out what we already knew, but never acknowledged: every one of us, in our own little ways, is a weirdo. THE BOOK OF FREAKS is bewildering in a good way—a bluntly informational yet oddly poetic tour de force.

"Jamie Iredell can spin around with a disc in his hand and then throw that disc incredible distances. He can also do freakish things with words."—Michael Kimball

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jamie Iredell lives in Atlanta, Georgia. His writing has been published enthusiastically and reluctantly in various known and unknown forums. He also wrote a book called Prose. Poems. A Novel. (Orange Alert Press, 2009), which is very hard to find.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Future Tense Books (February 22, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892061392
• ISBN-13: 978-1892061393
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,190,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jamie Iredell lives in Atlanta with his wife, where said wife roots rabidly for the Philadelphia Phillies, meantime Iredell himself weeps dejectedly while the Oakland Athletics mire themselves in the swill of failure.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Curiouser and curiouser May 14, 2011

By JH

Format:Paperback

I rarely feel compelled to review books here but this one deserves a response. First, freak is right. But not the kind you find at the state fair. These are the kind you find in your backyard--familiar but strange.

This book is a curiosity, an exploration of anything and everything. There are no guidelines yet the book is ordered and out of order. It makes sense and makes more sense the further along you read. After you realize you're not in Kansas anymore, Iredell's prose, which wastes nothing, grabs you and holds you to each and every entry in this catalog of Americana. The book is worth that alone.

Finally, there is a strange cumulative effect you don't realize until about halfway through then you understand you're in it for the long haul and finish the damn thing in one sitting. Really. You're simply curious to see what the hell he's going to tackle next.

The world would seem a lot smaller and much less interesting if "The Book of Freaks" weren't in it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange and Wonderful May 13, 2011

By Man Martin

Format:Paperback

This is a book like no other - a dictionary so inclusive that you will not find the title page you reach the 'T's. Iredell gives definitions of boobs, football anouncers, courtship, and tumors. Sometimes hilarious and irreverent, sometimes eerie, sometimes poignant - the definitions veer into stories, satire, and poetry. My favorite piece in the book is "Boys," which takes an unexpected detour into a sad and lovely story as mysterious and touching as Dybek's "Pet Milk." But you are sure to have your favorites as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Unatural History August 8, 2011

By Pliny the Welder

Format:Paperback

Jamie Iredell's book can be read as a kind of Flaubertian satire; it can also be read as a handbook for or encyclopedia of one's experience of modern-day chaos. The short, funny, sometimes dark, often big-hearted entries, often written with an urgency that seems to arise as much from the author's amusement and pleasure in composition as it does from his bafflement with the 'freaks' that people the land, accumulate not only as a possible aggregate of need-to-know articles, but also as a mass of vocally unified prose poems. The author's voice is familiar and strong, and I enjoyed its happy implication that the observer of modern freaks is himself a kind of freak, as is the reader. How else could any of us be, the book seems to ask, when surrounded by and involved in the absurdities of American sporting events, traveling in the US, or even reading a book (check out the blurbs) in a world where we publish more than we could possibly ever read? Recommended for freaks.