Carsick is not a
book for the easily offended, and it has enough bizarre material in it to
possibly get under the skin of the not-so-easily offended as well. If you are
familiar with the movies of John Waters, the book’s author, let’s just say that
Carsick is much closer to Waters’
older, weirder movies such as Pink
Flamingos and Polyester than it
is to Hairspray, his best known and
tamest movie.
Carsick isn’t easy
to categorize, and not just because of Waters’ exploration of the sick part of
the book’s title. The basic idea behind Carsick
was for Waters to hitchhike from his home in Baltimore all the way across
the country to San Francisco. I knew the basic idea going in and was surprised
to find out that the book was divided into three sections: a fictionalized
section of good hitchhiking rides (or at least good in Waters’ mind), a
fictionalized section of bad hitchhiking rides, and finally a section titled “The
Real Thing” that documents Waters’ real hitchhiking adventures. I was a little
disappointed with the first section of the book but found section two, the
fictional bad rides, to be disturbing and entertaining in a good way.
Not surprisingly, Waters’ true account of hitchhiking across
the country doesn’t come close to his hitchhiking fantasies in the first two
sections. “The Real Thing” is instead an odd little portrait of America. There
are a few people who recognize Waters but most of the people who pick him up
are just trying to be helpful to someone they imagine is down on his luck.
Waters writes about an America that perhaps isn’t as divided as we may think,
at least not along Interstate 70, which Waters is on for most of his trip.
People want to help out. Some drive farther than they normally would, and most of
the police officers he sees don’t give him a hard time. One even gives him a
ride and tries to contact an officer in the next county who might be able to
take Waters farther. Carsick ends up
with the unusual achievement of being both heart-warming and disgusting.
No comments:
Post a Comment