"When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. 'Spread your lips, sweet Lil,' they'd cluck, 'and show us your choppers!'"
This is the opening paragraph of the novel and immediately signals to the reader that the title is not a reference to the modern-day connotation of "geeks" as D&D-obsessed computer nerds. The geek to which Papa Binewski is referencing traces back to the 19th century carny term for those on the lowest level of the sideshow hierarchy: an attraction featuring a human biting heads off chickens. This act is specifically what Papa is describing here, though admittedly in such colorful language it may not be immediately obvious. The imperative to Lil to "spread her lips" is a direct characterization of the entertainment value of the carnival geek. He then tosses in a little wordplay by using the term "cluck" in his personification of hens seeming to possess the ability to speak. It may also not be completely clear that "clipping off of noggins" is a carny patois for more creatively conveying that the geek's sole job was to bite off heads of those clucking chickens.
"My father spared no expense in these experiments. My mother had been liberally dosed with cocaine, amphetamines, and arsenic during her ovulation and throughout her pregnancy with me. It was a disappointment when I emerged with such commonplace deformities."
This quote situates the central premise of the story. The Binewski family operates a carnival sideshow and "Papa" Binewski mentioned in the above quote is the patriarch of a brood of "sideshow freaks." The Binewski offspring are not naturally born with the physical deformities which characterized such carny attractions. Mother in this quote is Lil, the geek clipping off chicken noggins mentioned in the above quote. The parents conspire to produce a sort of freakshow dynasty artificially through experiments in genetic mutation. Olympia has an older brother with flippers for hands and feet, a pair of sisters who were born conjoined at the waist and share one pair of legs (referred to in the vernacular of the time as "Siamese Twins"), and younger brother Chick who is physically free of any deformity but possesses telepathic powers. Olympia herself is a disappointment in comparison to her older siblings because she is merely an albino hunchback dwarf.
"Miranda is a popular girl, tall and well shaped. She gets phone calls every evening before she leaves for work. Miranda does not try to disguise herself from her grandmother. She believes herself to be an orphan named Barker."
The book is structured along two timelines. Olympia tells the story of her parents, the genetic experiments during Lil's pregnancies, and the history of her siblings in the past. The other timeline is set many years later when Olympia is an adult with a daughter of her own. That daughter is Miranda though, as indicated, she does not know anything about her strange lineage. The key element in this quote is that Miranda thinks she was orphaned. This part of the narrative structured in part around the mystery of why she did not remain part of the family even though she was born with a small tail. The circumstances of Miranda's birth have something to do with this mystery as she was conceived incestuously through a bizarre non-intercourse means combining the sperm of Olympia's older brother and the telepathic powers of her younger brother. The work to which Miranda leaves after getting a phone call makes a pointed connection between the appeal of carnival sideshows and strip shows.
