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Female Trouble
“Burroughs famously dubbed Waters the Pope of Trash. Female Trouble, we might say, is his Summa Trashologica.”
—Ed Halter, The Criterion Collection
It all goes to hell when Baltimore bad girl Dawn Davenport doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she’s been demanding for Christmas. In this hilarious, irreverent, pyrotechnic melée of high-trash hijinks, Dawn ruins Christmas, skips town, and embarks on a wild ride that involves hitchhiking, robbery, murder, pregnancy—and, of course, modeling and glamour, too. The second installment of John Waters’ classic Trash Trilogy, Female Trouble explodes conventional norms of good behavior (and art) and is all the proof you’ll ever need that sometimes being bad can feel so, so very good.
—Ed Halter, The Criterion Collection
It all goes to hell when Baltimore bad girl Dawn Davenport doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she’s been demanding for Christmas. In this hilarious, irreverent, pyrotechnic melée of high-trash hijinks, Dawn ruins Christmas, skips town, and embarks on a wild ride that involves hitchhiking, robbery, murder, pregnancy—and, of course, modeling and glamour, too. The second installment of John Waters’ classic Trash Trilogy, Female Trouble explodes conventional norms of good behavior (and art) and is all the proof you’ll ever need that sometimes being bad can feel so, so very good.
128 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2025
About the author
John Waters
101 books1,512 followersJohn Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, personality, visual artist and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films: Pink Flamingos and Hairspray. He is recognizable by his pencil-thin moustache.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 14, 2025
Thanks to Macmillan Audio, the amazing John Waters (author), and Libro.fm for providing a free advance audiobook of Female Trouble: A Screenplay expertly read by John Waters himself. Getting free stuff does not influence my reviews in any way.
John Waters, known for his shockingly trashy screenplays, did it again. Female Trouble is #2 in his “Trash Trilogy”, and it is a wild ride from start to finish. There is something really clever in here about celebrity, trashiness, beauty, disfigurement, grandeur, and unimportant-ness. I loved it.
This audiobook is one of several from Waters being released 10/21/2025. 4.5 stars from me!
John Waters, known for his shockingly trashy screenplays, did it again. Female Trouble is #2 in his “Trash Trilogy”, and it is a wild ride from start to finish. There is something really clever in here about celebrity, trashiness, beauty, disfigurement, grandeur, and unimportant-ness. I loved it.
This audiobook is one of several from Waters being released 10/21/2025. 4.5 stars from me!
March 2, 2026
"Female Trouble" is still my favorite John Waters' film and reading the script was just as fun as watching the movie.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews