Writer Katherine Dunn died on Thursday at the age of 70 due to complications from lung cancer, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. Dunn’s career saw the publication of multiple fiction novels, as well as a collection of her columns for the Willamette Week. She went on to devote years to writing about boxing, for which she earned a Lange-Taylor prize. Dunn also wrote a regular column on the sport for a Portland newspaper, eventually publishing the anthology, One Ring Circus: Dispatches From The World Of Boxing.
Aside from her award-winning work as a boxing writer, Dunn was best known for her audacious and bizarre 1989 novel Geek Love, the strange story of a family of sideshow freaks, their internal power struggles, and the alarming cult that arises around one family member in particular. Back in 2009, that book, a bestseller and National Book Award nominee, was thoroughly discussed and dissected in a series of A.V. Club articles as part of the Wrapped Up In Books series. It was the first book so honored. To conclude its series on Geek Love, The A.V. Club presented an interview with the author. In it, Dunn discussed her feelings about cults and whether or not the Jonestown massacre was a direct influence on Geek Love.