Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller

So much to say about this book. All I can do is beg you to read it read it read it!

Cookies voice is singular and convincing, yet the way she writes is almost passive… take it or leave it, she doesn’t care. This is also a perfect re-read, as it is mostly a collection of essays/reflections. There’s certainly something for everyone, whether you are a fan of the John Waters crew or not!

“Mueller's many mise en scènes—the Baltimore of John Waters, post-Stonewall Provincetown, avant-garde Italy, 1980s New York, an America enduring Reagan and AIDS—patches together a singular personal history and a primer for others. As Laing writes in her introduction, Collected Stories amounts to ‘a how-to manual for a life ricocheting joyously off the rails . . . a live corrective to conformity, conservatism, and cruelty.’”

I certainly want life to be ricocheting joyously off the rails, for better or for worse.

Also, THE TITLE. 🫶🫶🫶