Its a story about a family in a traveling carnival of which all the kids are freaks due to the parents deliberately taking all types of drugs to make them fucked up. Of the surviving kids one is a sort of a thalidomide kid who swims in a tank like a seal and is a great yarn spinner and hit with the ladies. Then there are conjoint twins who play piano together and sing and become prostitutes and the youngest, the main protagonist, is a hunch-back girl who resents the others because she's not enough of a freak. She's also in love with her brother but he sees her as nothing.
So there you have it. A great book which will make a great dark movie full of unrequited love, incest, jealousy, loathing, deceit, murder and, most importantly, freak sex. It can't possibly lose. The imagery would be deliciously macabre and bizarre.
A while back it was rumoured that Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton were fighting over rights to this. Personally I say fuck Tim Burton. He's a complete sell out and personally I don't think he has the balls Gilliam does to make this totally left of field although I would rather Guillermo del Toro make it than either of them.
If anyone here hasn't read it, do, its awesome
