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Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America
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Published:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2014
Status:
Checked Out
Description

Carsick is the New York Times bestselling chronicle of 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.

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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
06/03/2014
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780374709303
ASIN:
B00GVQXWRK
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

John Waters. (2014). Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

John Waters. 2014. Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

John Waters, Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

MLA Citation (style guide)

John Waters. Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 17:12:20
Date Updated:
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      • bioText: John Waters is a writer, a film director, an actor, and a visual artist best known for his films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Serial Mom. He is the author of the national bestsellers Role Models, Carsick and Mr. Know-It-All. His spoken-word shows This Filthy World, False Negative, and A John Waters Christmas continue to be performed around the world. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
      • name: John Waters
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title
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fullDescription

Carsick is the New York Times bestselling chronicle of 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.

reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review
      • content:

        "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."

      • premium: False
      • source: Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
      • content: "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 --reveals himself to be a . . . sentimentalist . . . underlying it all is a highly developed sense of fun, a desire to amuse more than to shock."
      • premium: False
      • source: Dwight Garner, The New York Times
      • content: "Mr. Waters has long been that relative rarity among American film directors. He can write. His memoirish volume Role Models is observant and light on its feet, and his essays and journalism, sure to be collected in their entirety someday, are fond, exotic well groomed, debonair--'natty,' to borrow one of my father's favorite words . . . This writer has proved himself to be good company."
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from April 28, 2014
        The illustrious director of Hairspray, Cry Baby, and Pink Flamingoes embarked on a cross-country hitchhiking journey in 2012. This, Waters’s seventh book, is a travelogue of his experiences bumming rides all the way from his home in Baltimore to his apartment in San Francisco. Waters idiosyncratically cuts to the core of American diversity, finding the good (and bad) in any situation with biting wit. The unlikely friendship Waters forms with a young Republican politician is an unexpected twist, and a timely tale of bromance in the midst of hardship. If a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and the pope of Trash can have an adventure in Reno together, aren’t all things still possible in this world? But for Waters aficionados, the best parts of this enchanting narrative aren’t the ones that actually happened. Fans will delight in the two novellas, with Waters at his campiest and most ludicrous, that precede the nonfiction third act. Presenting the best- and worst-case scenarios for modern hitchhiking as only Waters can, the narratives range from encounters with a pleasant group of marijuana smugglers and Edith Massey, to a harrowing imprisonment in Kansas and traumatic fan meeting. Waters devotees take note: this is required reading. Agent: Bill Clegg, William Morris Endeavor.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        May 1, 2014
        Face it: Wouldn't you rather strike out on the road with John Waters than Jack Kerouac?If the answer is yes, then this book is for you, even if Waters (Role Models, 2011, etc.), the ever-flamboyant auteur-(Pink Flamingos, Hairspray et al) turned-writer, takes his sweet time getting going. For more than half of this account of his 2012 cross-country journey hitchhiking from Baltimore to San Francisco, the author imagines what lies in store, with dueling full-length novellas that spin best and worst case scenarios. Best: a never-ending thrill ride full of rich potheads, happy freaks and horny hunks, all of whom know and love his work. Worst: The trip west is seething with small-town homophobes, stage moms, crazed environmentalists and serial killers. The real story, once it arrives, is a welcome relief, as the truth is more hilarious and interesting than Waters' nuttiest fantasies. He dealt with troubles he didn't expect, like tedium or the art of making a marketable cardboard sign. (He eventually ditched his original sign, "I'm Not Psycho," wisely realizing that "hitchhiking is not the time to be a comedian.") Waters hitched rides with a preacher's wife, a hay farmer and an indie band, and he struck up a budding bromance with a straight, young Maryland Republican city councilman. The author was grateful that, even in the hinterlands, C-list celebrity status could be a real asset and was even more touched by the kindness of people who didn't know him at all. Some-who apparently didn't notice his BlackBerry, tracking device or designer sports jacket-even offered money, which he gently refused ("Yeah sure, I see her thinking, here's a homeless person off his meds").The book idles way too long, but once it takes off, it's a sweet and funny ride.

        COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from May 15, 2014
        There's nothing cheaper, ungenerousabout Waters, the Pope of Trash (or Filth, or both). His new book is actually three (clap!), three (clap!), three books in one! All are based on the pitch he sold his publisher about hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his home in San Francisco. Oh, he knew it was insane I'm sixty-six years old, for chrissake and so wrote it up in advance, just in case, once imagining The Best That Could Happen, then again envisioning The Worst That Could Happen. Because he is, after all, John Pink Flamingos Waters, both fictional trips are rather similar in terms of weirdness and even scabrousness, at least in the eyes of those who aren't J PF W. Fortunately, except for a handful of incidents (well, maybe more) that body-slam the boundaries of scatological toleration, both are pretty constantly hilarious and, when he somehow encounters such figures from his past as Edith Massey (the Egg Lady in PF) and 1980s gay porn star Johnny Davenport (whom Waters never knew, casually or biblicallyalas!), sentimental. The real trip, hardly as ludicrous as the preceding fictions, takes longer, involves more drivers, and has Waters growing in admiration for the regularbut far from colorless!people who pick him up, especially the married guys who praise their wives to the skies. Traveluh, hitchhikingbook of the year?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        January 1, 2014

        When freaky filmmaker Waters decides to hitchhike from Baltimore to San Francisco, bearing a sign that says, "I'm Not Psycho," he thought he might encounter an angry, armed drunk or a rich drug dealer happy to finance his films. Instead, there's a sweet octogenarian, an indie band on tour, and (his favorite) a sandy-haired Republican in a Corvette.

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        May 15, 2014

        The elder statesman of trash cinema, director/writer Waters (Shock Value; Pink Flamingos and Other Filth) brings us his take on the Great American Road Novel, recounting his nine-day solo hitchhiking odyssey from Baltimore to San Francisco. Before setting out in real life, he imagines best- and worst-case scenarios for the trip. In the former, he stumbles into funding for a new film, explores chaotic music festivals and pirate truck stops, and finds true love, while the latter sees him losing, in short order, everything but the clothes on his back (don't worry, the clothes experience their own share of suffering), and culminates in his brutal murder. After these manic musings, the retelling of the actual trip can't help but seem just a tad mundane, but Waters's inimitable blend of compassion, curiosity, and camp will be sure to hold readers' interest until journey's end. VERDICT A rollicking, raunchy romp that delivers big-time laughs. For open-minded travel-journal fans and pop/trash culture addicts.--Neil Derksen, Pierce Cty. Lib. Syst., Tacoma

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        November 1, 2014

        The cult filmmaker embarks on a madcap, solo cross-country hitchhiking trip, carrying a backup cardboard sign that reassuringly states, "I'M NOT A PSYCHO." En route to San Francisco, he meets a diverse cast of characters including a pot dealer who's willing to finance his next project, a cop who mistakes him for Steve Buscemi, and a lusty demolition car driver. Waters's brief encounters are colorful and campy, and his road reports--lascivious fantasies and all--are highly entertaining. (LJ 5/15/14)

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity
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Carsick is the New York Times bestselling chronicle of 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...

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      • description: Travel / United States / General