Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America
*Starred Review* There’s nothing cheap—er, ungenerous—about 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 biblically—alas!), sentimental. The real trip, hardly as ludicrous as the preceding fictions, takes longer, involves more drivers, and has Waters growing in admiration for the regular—but far from colorless!—people who pick him up, especially the married guys who praise their wives to the skies. Travel—uh, hitchhiking—book of the year? --Ray Olson