Truck [Paperback]

Katherine Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1990

Reissued to coincide with the publication of Geek Love.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446391530
• ISBN-13: 978-0446391535
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #723,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Katherine Dunn is an award-winning boxing journalist whose work has appeared in many publications, including Esquire, KO Magazine, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy, The Ring, Sports Illustrated, and Vogue. She is the author of three novels, including Geek Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2004, Dunn and photographer Jim Lommasson won the Lange-Taylor Documentary Prize for their work on the book Shadow Boxers. She is currently associate editor of cyberboxingzone.com, an internet boxing encyclopedia and magazine. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This is no Geek Love, April 14, 2006

By 

Charles Glover - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Truck (Paperback)

I am a completionist. Whenever I read a good book by a writer, I seek out their other works and read them as well. "Geek Love" is one of the best books I've read in a while. It is richly plotted, well developed, and it contains some of the most unique and bizarre yet believable characters in any work of literature I have ever read. Needless to say, I finished it and immediately looked up everything else by this author.

"Truck," although published by Warner Books, has the look, feel, and smell of a "print on demand" book. I have never seen it in a store, and the "brand new" copy they sent me when I ordered it had no cover price on it, nor does Amazon offer it at a discount. I suspect that Warner Books publishes this book as a print on demand book to any person who looks it up online and wants to read it because they liked "Geek Love." I think this is a good thing for both the author and the publisher.

I wish all books could remain in a "print on demand" format once their original press run goes out of print. This would be a good way for publishers and authors to continue making money on a book that may be forgotten by most.

Unfortunately, "Truck" does not even begin to reach the heights Dunn achieved in "Geek Love." The narrative style is nowhere to be found, nor is the character development. Dunn herself, in her afterword to "Geek Love," admitted that she wrote her first two novels and then took ten years off to "learn how to write." In that time she refined her craft and composed "Geek Love." Indeed, she was telling the truth.

"Truck" is a convoluted rambling narrative that goes on and on in paragraphs that last for many pages and that include dialogue which, although in quotations, is still included in the middle of paragraphs. It is hard to read, and offers little reward upon completion. By the time I finished this 200 page book, I no longer cared what happened to the characters. The book ends very loosely as well, adding to my frustration. There are some good observations in this book, some of the writing is of good quality, but please do not buy this hoping to find something as moving and as important as "Geek Love." You will be let down.

I can only hope that Dunn will someday come out of hibernation with a new novel that captures the depth and quality of "Geek Love." Please do not come to this book hoping to find the same.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars if you can find it...., June 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Truck (Paperback)

after reading "geek love", i spent several years searching for dunn's earlier, out-of-print novels. until today: stumbled upon 'truck" in a used store! been reading all afternoon: daring fiction, fascinating characters (of course), and i am left wondering why ms dunn is not more widely recognized...her writing is even more experimental and adventurous here than in geek love (far as language and structure are concerned)...few writers can pull off a forty page paragraph, compelling all the way through.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars See how far Katherine Dunn came to write Geek Love, May 15, 1999

By 

"yitzy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Truck (Paperback)

As a huge fan of Geek Love, I read both Truck and Attic, Dunn's earlier works. It's clear from reading Truck, the account of a boyish runaway girl, that Dunn came a long way in learning how to structure a narrative. The main character in Truck seems loosely based on Dunn's own childhood. The characters are compellingly physical-- they do things that real people do, like check their pits for smell, that people in books rarely do. They are polymorphously perverse. The plot is not terribly engaging, but you either sympathize with the characters or are disgusted by them; Dunn doesn't leave much room for simple apathy.