Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 20 January 2011.
A self-portrait told through intimate literary profiles of John Waters' favourite personalities - some famous, some less well-known. A paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich and happily horrify readers everywhere.
Role Models is a wild and witty self-portrait of John Waters, America's 'Pope of Trash', told through intimate profiles of his favourite personalities - some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some surprisingly middle of the road.
From Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to the playwright Tennessee Williams; from the atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair to the insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from the English novelist Denton Welch to the timelessly appealing singer Johnny Mathis - these are the extreme figures who helped John Waters form his own brand of neurotic happiness.
A paean to the power of subversive inspiration that delights, amuses and happily horrifies in equal measure...
'How did somebody from a quiet Baltimore neighborhood grow up to become the outlandish, brilliant, and insane John Waters? Two words: Johnny Mathis.' - Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors
'A delirious descent into Waters World, Role Models is a true-life confessional from one of America's greatest ironists. John Waters is a man always ready and willing to say the unsayable. He is the dark mirror of contemporary culture. From haute couture to low culture, from literary outsiders to lapsed actors, he delivers razor-sharp pen portraits of the women and men who have perverted and inspired him by turns. And yet Waters's warped imagination is always humane, his judgments insightful. Role Models is as much a philosophical manifesto as it is an utterly hilarious and shamelessly entertaining read.' - Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan, or The Whale
'John Waters has a great gift for appreciation-whether for toothless lesbian strippers in Baltimore or the most rarefied painters and writers of our day. He is a dandy who has done away with everyone else's hierarchies and created a new world that conforms only to his own taste for trash and the sublime. He is frank, funny, and (strangely enough) both sensible and outrageous.' - Edmund White, author of City Boy
Author
About John Waters
John Waters is an American filmmaker, actor, writer and visual artist best know for his cult films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos and Cecil B. DeMented. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
