The strange career of Katheine Dunn

A note on Katherine Dunn’s posthumously published story, The Resident Poet, in last week’s New Yorker: Dunn had a really unusual literary career. Apparently she published two experimental novels in far-from-mainstream press in the 60s or 70s, but she rose to national attention in the 80s with the publication of her novel Geek Love. That novel was known for Dunn’s compassionate portrayal of a troupe of sideshow performers, though of course part of the appeal/success/notoriety of the novel was that it played to the lurid curiousity of many readers. Dunn then disappeared from the publishing world, and she died in 2016. She apparentlyleft a trove of unpublished manuscripts, which is kind of amazing – you’d think many publishers would want to publish her and build on the fame and attention of Geek Love, but, no. I’d encourage anyone interested in Dunn to read the piece on the Nyer online about her archive; apparently one reason she wasn’t more widely published was that she lived in Portland, Oregon – and not in the heart of the literary world (NYC), which is a sad and shameful commentary about the publishing industry. As to her posthumous NYer story, The Resident Poet, I think it’s fair to say that no story about sex has ever been less sexual. The protagonist, a college freshman in what could be Reed College?, sneaks off for weekend w/ one of her professors, the eponymous (though unnamed) poet, and from the get-go their interactions, her observations about his clothing, driving, eating habits, drinking, and sexual performance make him entirely repulsive. He’s a scoundrel and a creep, but she’s no angel, either – why’d she get into this situation? What’s in it for her? Grades, credits, stature? In the end, neither character in this duet is likable or even sympathetic in the least. Sure, the writing is great – and you can’t stop reading it – but you wonder, in the end, why you read it.