Cynthia Ceilán gives Cupid the shaft*
and goes in search of unconventional love in
Weirdly Beloved: Tales of Strange Bedfellows, Odd Couplings, and Love Gone Bad.

*and he likes it!weirdly beloved cynthia ceilan

 
 
 

 

Weirdly Beloved: Tales of Strange Bedfellows, Odd Couplings, and Love Gone Bad
Cynthia Ceilán
2008
The Lyons Press

 
   Does love give you that warm, fuzzy feeling, particularly because you’re wearing a mascot uniform while engaging in an act depicted in the Kama Sutra? If so, and you’re not a professional team mascot, you’re likely one of a group of fetishists known as Furries. If you’ve never heard of Furries, but would like to learn about them – and objectophiles, and find out why that bulldog is wearing a wedding dress (She had the nerve to wear white?) – from a safe distance, behold: Cynthia Ceilán’s Weirdly Beloved: Tales of Strange Bedfellows, Odd Couplings and Love Gone Bad will tell you all you need to know, and then some.

   Weirdly Beloved is Ceilán’s second you can’t make this stuff up work of nonfiction.* Part journalist, part autobiographer, Ms. Ceilán reports on the stranger side of love while recounting her own love- and family life. There is plenty of material for her in a world populated with the likes of Charles Tombe. A native resident of Sudan, Mr. Tombe had to endure a grueling legal trial for simply falling in love…
with a goat named Rose.
   Rose legally became Mrs. Charles Tombe shortly after the trial, at the judge‘s order. Mr. Tombe also had to pay Rose’s owner a dowry of 15,000 dinars (that means it costs about fifty US dollars to marry your neighbor‘s goat).
   Weirdly Beloved’s weirdness continues with chapters such as “Crazy For You” (falling hard for hardened criminals); “I Love My Stuff” (falling hard for, say, the Berlin Wall; which itself fell); “Byte Me” (cyber sex/you name it); and “Catered Affairs to Remember” (wedding receptions that make an episode of The Jerry Springer Show look like a day at a charm school).

   Ceilán rounds out the text with recollections of her own relationships, including a failed marriage and her ongoing struggle with the Old Aunts. She is an insightful observer of both herself and others, and her clever wordplay and keen wit shine throughout the entire work. The book’s memoir aspect makes for enjoyable cover-to-cover reading, while the concept and chapter organization make it a great coffee table book, a true conversation piece.

So head on down to your local bookstore and say “I do” to Weirdly Beloved: Tales of Strange Bedfellows, Odd Couplings and Love Gone Bad.

*Cynthia Ceilán’s first book, Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed, deals with an array of unusual deaths. You can, for lack of a better term, check out a review of Thinning the Herd here.