HUBERT'S FREAKS: THE RARE-BOOK DEALER, THE TIMES SQUARE TALKER, AND THE LOST PHOTOS OF DIANE ARBUS, by Gregory Gibson, Harcourt, 273 pages, $24.

Gregory Gibson is an antiquarian book dealer who was astounded when he went to dinner one night with another book dealer, the known pill-popper Bob Langmuir.

Langmuir is an avid fan of old blues and folk recordings, known also as a raconteur, so he proceeded to tell Gibson a story about a Times Square freak show, a tattooed man, a Nigerian prince, a gorgeous snake dancer and Diane Arbus, the photographer.

After the two spent an entire evening talking about it, Gibson had the urge to write a book. At the heart of the story is the fascination the public often holds for "the seedy underbelly" of society.

Langmuir told Gibson he procured some priceless Diane Arbus photos and a journal written by Charlie Lucas, who called himself "an inside talker." He got them from a Nigerian prince who opened an intriguing trunk at a memorabilia sale. The photos were taken at Hubert's Freak Show, which did business in New York City's Times Square from somewhere in the '30s until the

mid-'60s.

It was located on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. Bob Dylan, Tom Wolfe and Lenny Bruce were known to have frequented the place.

Arbus, who committed suicide in 1971, was especially noted for her portraits of people on the fringes of society, such as transvestites, dwarfs, giants, prostitutes, etc. She received some acclaim for her photos, although they were controversial. One noteworthy, respected critic, Susan Sontag, once criticized her in The New York Review of Books as someone who photographed "monsters" who were "pathetic, pitiable as well as repulsive."

Allegedly, Arbus took photos of such unusual people as Andy Potato Chips; Tattooed Jack Dracula; Estelline Pike, a sword swallower; Congo the Jungle Creep; and DeWise Purdon, a man with no hands.

Lucas was married to the snake charmer, with whom he performed "a dance of love."

Langmuir interviewed the surviving members of the freak show, then he met with photography curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Sotheby's and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and tried to interest them in the photos. He thought that maybe this was his lucky moment in a life filled with disappointments.

Gibson was interested in Langmuir digging up pieces of "the old weird America" and wondered if to some extent it still existed. Langmuir will get his day in the sun when the Arbus/Hubert collection has an international exhibition and auction in New York in April.

This is a very strange but well-written book. It may even symbolize the secret of the success of reality television.

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E-mail: dennis@desnews.com