John Waters, Filmmaker of Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, Pecker, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Writes First Book: Liarmouth

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In the acknowledgement of Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, author John Waters thanks 3 staffers for being “top notched researchers and copy editors…as they typed each draft of this novel from my hand written original, they teetered on the literary edge of taste with me, hopefully protecting my cockeyed balance.” This book dips into what many may consider “bad taste.“ It is not the book for them. It is a book for those fond of Waters’ gift of painting the societal extremes, humanity’s eckveldt, in rich, resonant, luminous, and humorous literary tones. No one does it better. 

Waters is the kind of artist you might think it’s not proper to like, too much sex, too many weirdos, too much sleazy sordid societal underbelly, but as a fan of Flannery O’Connor and Carolyn Chute, such grotesques in literature and film fascinate, and reveal the human condition in all its glory. The only thing better than a feel bad romance from John Waters, is listening to his narration of it on an audiobook. Waters narrates the story like your favorite, irreverent, hilarious friend retelling every detail of his recent trip to Vegas or Detroit. You will feel compelled to underline all his best phrases in a hard copy or ebook, but his narration of the story in its entirety is a rare treat, impeccably done, and should be a candidate for narration or best audio awards. 

This romance is a continual cacophony of perversion...symphonic in scale and proportion. It is a writhing, pulsing, bouncing, lip licking tale, conveying itself across time and topography via a variety of transportation options, furtively seeking its advent to climax as Marsha Sprinkle slides into the shotgun seat of Lester Barnhill’s truck, where air is thick with promise and possibility, culminating in the tragicomic wreckage of a Provincetown carnival ride, leading ultimately to the satisfying conclusion at Moreland Memorial Park Cemetery where the distant silhouette of a figure emerging from the smoke of an explosion offers the promise of new life. 

Waters is an author who electrifies random letters into words, and puts them in the kind of order that causes them to rise off the page and into your brain as full blown 3D images. While Flannary O’Connor put “Southern Gothic” on the genre list, Waters’ book might be considered “Cosmopolitan Gothic.” It’s a Chinese fire drill of a story in all its colorful animated idiosyncratic splendor.  

While this book is no candidate for the Hallmark Romance channel, perhaps a new channel is called for, a Feel Bad Romance channel. This novel could be destined for bigger things, another John Waters film, full of grotesques, sweaty, sexy, conniving and wriggling their way through life toward destinations glittering with opportunity. Or, given that promise of new life on the smoky horizon, one might even dare to hope for a sequel. 

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