Description
A cross-country hitchhiking journey with America’s most beloved weirdo
John Waters is putting his life on the line. Armed with wit, a
pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads “I’m Not Psycho,”
he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore to San Francisco, braving
lonely roads and treacherous drivers. But who should we be more worried
about, the delicate film director with genteel manners or the
unsuspecting travelers transporting the Pope of Trash?
Before he
leaves for this bizarre adventure, Waters fantasizes about the best and
worst possible scenarios: a friendly drug dealer hands over piles of
cash to finance films with no questions asked, a demolition-derby driver
makes a filthy sexual request in the middle of a race, a gun-toting
drunk terrorizes and holds him hostage, and a Kansas vice squad entraps
and throws him in jail. So what really happens when this cult legend
sticks out his thumb and faces the open road? His real-life rides
include a gentle eighty-one-year-old farmer who is convinced Waters is a
hobo, an indie band on tour, and the perverse filmmaker’s unexpected
hero: a young, sandy-haired Republican in a Corvette.
Laced with subversive humor and warm intelligence, Carsick
is an unforgettable vacation with a wickedly funny companion—and a
celebration of America’s weird, astonishing, and generous citizenry.
About the Author
John Waters is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and visual artist best known for his cult films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Cecil B. DeMented. He is also the author of a memoir, Role Models. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Praise for Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America…
Praise for Carsick
One of New York Magazine's 6 Books to Read This Summer
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Summer Books of 2014
"Fantastical and plush . . . Carsick becomes a portrait not just of America's desolate freeway nodes—though they are brilliantly evoked—but of American fame itself." —Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review
"In this, the seventh of his books, John Waters—the evil genius of Baltimore, the living, breathing embodiment of camp, the man with the bristling pencil-thin mustache and vocabulary that would make a drill sergeant blush—betrays his deepest and darkest secret. In these pages the apostle of outrage—the actor, writer and director whose contributions to cinematic glory include 'Pink Flamingos,' 'Mondo Trasho,' and 'Hairspray'—reveals himself to be a . . . sentimentalist . . . underlying it all is a highly developed sense of fun, a desire to amuse more than to shock . . . Waters has made a funny engaging and—of course—occasionally outrageous book . . . All in all a cool trip and a delightful book." —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
Email or call for price and availability.
Carsick is the New York Times bestselling chronicle of a cross-country hitchhiking journey with America's most beloved weirdo.