Even in Mr. Irving's fictional world of eccentrics, freaks and oddballs, the Cole clan stands out as a paradigm of dysfunction.
They staged a fine tribute to their hero Syd Barrett on his death in 2006, and seemed to fit snugly into his eccentric English freak-pop tradition.
Often, tennis parents are classified as eccentric control freaks living vicariously through their offspring, but they are also people from diverse backgrounds who want nothing more than a better life for their children.
But in the recent pop mainstream these female artists are far outweighed by the eccentrics, the freaks, the adventuresome.
As his artistic reputation foundered, so another reputation grew: that of an eccentric, unpredictable control freak, as likely to scream a string of profanities at the person nearest to him as to pull a gun on them.
Above all else, the Kuchars are weirdness incarnate outliers even among the outsiders and too eccentric for the freaks.
The bulk of her New Jersey subjects, like the rest of her photographs, depict freaks, eccentrics, fools and outcasts.
Surrounded by a self-described "eccentric bunch of nerds, geeks, freaks, visionaries, outcasts," Miss Kaplan says, she feels perfectly comfortable.
"We're all painted birds, freaks with our own eccentric coloring, and wherever we fly, the unpainted birds peck at us and drag us to the ground," Gabriela tells Anya.
Until recently, contortion was consigned to the eccentric world of circus acts and freak-shows.
