Bring On The Hyperbolic Superlatives! My Top Books of 2014

Enjoying a book in my study

It's almost the end of another year and so we are besieged by Best-Of lists. I eagerly anticipate the book lists to see who agrees with me and whether or not I'm still hip. While there was some agreement, the books I read this year didn't make many lists and, thus, I fear my literary hipness is on the wane. It makes sense. I've been out of the "biz" now for almost five years and though I try to stay up to date, it's obvious I'm missing a lot of titles. At first, I was saddened by this and then I realized it just makes for more books for Reed to read and that is hardly a bad thing. 

As for my own list, I read about thirty-five books this year with another dozen that went unfinished. Below are my favorites:

Non-fiction

Mad World by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein

Elephant Company by Vicki Croke

Carsick by John Waters
Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart

• I want to thank Majewski & Bernstein for making me feel like a 16 year old new waver again. Where is my eyeliner? 
• Croke introduced me to a remarkable man and an equally great tusker. 
• John Waters delighted and repulsed me, as is his wont. It's what he does, after all. 
• Shteyngart made me cry with laughter while breaking my heart. 

Fiction

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by A. J. Jansma

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Chop Chop by Simon Wroe

Perfect by Rachel Joyce

2 AM at the Cat's Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino

& Sons by David Gilbert
The Guts by Roddy Doyle

• Outstanding debut authors in Jansma, Sloan and Wroe. More please, gentlemen, and soon. 
• As for sophomore efforts, Bertino knocked me out with her main character and Joyce continues to provide us with fiction so luxurious, her books should cost more. 
• Gilbert threw me for such a loop, I still can't even begin to write about it as I'm just not equipped. 
• Even as the most established writer on this list, Doyle continues to amaze me and if I must pick one, my book of the year is The Guts. 

Thanks to the booksellers and librarians. Thanks to the authors and the publishers. Thanks to my friends in the biz who indulge me and keep me in books. Thanks to the reviewers and listmakers and, as always, thank you for reading what I write about what I read. See you back here in 2015.

Carsick by John Waters

At a college fair our junior year of high school, I met Rocky and we became fast friends. We were both weirdos at our respective high schools and you know what happens when weirdos meet. 

Rocky has always been more thoughtful than me and throughout the years, he has peppered the post with trinkets and tchotchkes, all of which catch me by surprise and unfailingly make my day. 

In early December 1987, I received the gift of a book from Rocky, a copy of Crackpot by John Waters. I had read a few of these pieces in Rolling Stone (back when it was still vital) and devoured the collection. His piece "Ladies and Gentlemen...the Nicest Kids in Town" was the basis for Hairspray. His twin commentaries, "Puff Piece (101 Things I Love)" and "Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate)", are still two of my favorites and I've turned back to the book again and again over the years. 

On the title page, Rocky inscribed "A gift by the King of Sleaze from one Prince of Sleaze to another. Enjoy the madness. Love, Rocky". We weren't sleazy in the traditional sense. For the most part, we were nice, small-town boys, but our interests lay well beyond our hometown. Ours was the sleaze of the Ramones, Rocky Horror, and old black and white movies. While Freddy Krueger was grossing millions that year, we preferred Tommy Udo from Kiss of Death, who was forty years Freddy's senior. 

Somehow over these thirty years, Rocky has come to know John Waters a bit. They have dined together and Rocky has been invited to the infamous John Waters Christmas party. How a small-town "prince" has managed this has made me marvel but it also makes me incredibly happy. More selfishly, by Rocky knowing John (can I call you John, John?), it places me a mere degree away from Waters and I pretend as I read his books (and I always read his books) that I know him a bit, too. 

Carsick is Waters' latest and it is great fun. The premise is simple: he will hitchhike across the United States "from my Baltimore house to the door of my San Francisco apartment building" primarily by way of Interstate 70. He keeps his trip a secret from the media and attempts not to use his celebrity to hasten the trip though that is often undone by the fact that he is a celebrity and a recognizable one, at that. And just to make it more interesting, Waters breaks the book into three parts: two are fictional and the last, the truth.

Part one, The Best That Could Happen, is what Waters imagines his dream rides would be like. In this section, he encounters freaks aplenty but they are kind, respectful, and ultimately good-hearted freaks like Lucas, a handsome demolition derby driver, a pair of millionaire potheads who offer to finance Waters' next movie, a trucker hauling a load of candy and appropriately named Gumdrop, ex-porn stars, even Edith Massey who starred alongside Divine in Polyester. For Waters, it is one fever dream ride of fun from one car to the next as he wends his way cross country.

Part two, The Worst That Could Happen, is just that. The freaks are freakier, uglier, and downright mean and, to be honest, this is where I thought the book dragged. I am by no means squeamish but I found the bad rides so sadistically over the top that it sucked out the fun. Perhaps this was by design but going back to the two essays from Crackpot (Hatchet Piece and Puff Piece) reminded me that Waters could pull off this good v. bad device with ease without making the reader want to scrub their brain with Clorox and a toilet brush until all the convolutions are flattened like a a stick of taffy. 

Fortunately, the book is righted by the true account of the journey. Waters finds rides from very average folks, especially as he traverses the vast Midwest. Some recognize him and some don't but he writes with lavish praise and finds how generous people can be. For all his life experience (the man had never been in a Wal-Mart before!), he encounters people and situations he might be quick to judge in other situations but comes to appreciate the simplicity of kindness. As he says at the very end of the acknowledgements, "If I ever hear another elitist jerk use the term flyover people, I'll punch him in the mouth." 

Some might read my post and think Waters has gone soft in his sixties, that his meanderings have made him mawkish and if that's the case, I have done the book a disservice. While Waters will forever be known for his outrageousness and his utter delight in the tacky and wacky, if one follows his career, it is easy to see that he has simply opened himself up. The 1970's John Waters would likely have driven through the Midwest pointing fingers at the townies and yokels because they were "townies and yokels". Back then the chasm of differences between them and himself was wide. At sixty-six, he can see the differences have shrunk considerably in the intervening years and that there are only a few lessons to be learned:  
You're either a good person or you're not. 
It doesn't take much work to be kind. 
Show people what they mean to you.  
We are all bound together. 

Thirty years ago, when Rocky and I met, the world was a bigger place, especially to a couple of small-town weirdos. It isn't any longer but the basics are still the same and mean more to me now than ever. John Waters gets it. I hope you do, too.