Mr. KnowItAll: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder

No one knows more about everythingespecially everything rude, clever, and offensively compellingthan John Waters. The man in the pencilthin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray, CryBaby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the worlds great sophisticates, and in Mr. KnowItAll he serves it up raw: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste, from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all.Studded with cameos, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from the authors personal collection, Mr. KnowItAll is Waters most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory bookanother instant Waters classic.Waters doesnt kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird . . . [Waters] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent. Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostCarsick becomes a portrait not just of Americas desolate freeway nodesthough theyre brilliantly evokedbut of American fame itself. Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review