Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance

by John Waters

A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.

Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth—until one insane man makes her tell the truth.

Liarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted “feel-bad romance,” and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Romance, Audiobook, Humor, LGBT, Contemporary

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2022

About the author

John 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.

Reviews

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a fucking mess. I love every single minute of it. No notes.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waters has written his first novel, and it's marketed as "a perfectly perverted feel-bad romance" - I can't disagree with that! You certainly have to either know what you're up to with Waters or be open to edgy, absurd and offensive humor to enjoy this, as this is transgressive writing and, as such, not for everybody. In the text, we meet 40-year-old professional suitcase thief and germaphobic con artist Marsha, who has promised her chauffeur and collaborator Daryl to have sex with him once if he supports her operation for one year and free of charge - when it's pay day, the partners in crime are exposed at an airport luggage carousel and flee, each one in a different direction. Now a crazy chase begins: Daryl hunts Marsha to get the sex he was promised, and he seeks and finds help with her daughter (a bouncy outlaw trampoline radical with jumpy friends) and her mother (who performs illegal plastic surgery on rich dogs). Both women have their own reasons to hate the runaway relative...

This campy romp indulges in orgies of surreal crime, sex, and overall bizarre settings, dialogues, and plotlines. I'm really looking forward to some reviews by the uninitiated who will bemoan coarse language, explicit perversions, general filth, implausible developments and unsympathetic characters ("I just couldn't identify with the woman who was a professional trampolinist adamant to kill her mother" or something along those lines) - you got to applaud Waters for that alone. This gay icon isn't called the "Pope of Trash" for nothing, kids.

So those four stars do not mean that this is great literature, here to win the Nobel - no, this is great for what it wants to be: Hautes bêtises, top-tier campy pulp, over-the-top glorious trash, a whole lot of fun in its absurdity.

If you don't know who John Waters is, check out this clip in which he chats with Stephen Colbert.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was disgusting. Four stars.

[inciminci · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book began truly hilarious but got very tiresome after a while, like too much and constant hilarity that I tired of it and it all started feeling a little forced after a while.
I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by Waters himself and it's read really well.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this was brilliant, and pointless, and I recommend it without reservation for those of you out there who enjoy unexpectedly frothy funny grotesque disturbing humor, the kind of humor that possibly only John Waters could have written. There is a talking penis named Richard. There is a cat being fondly masturbated by her owner. There is a kidnapped woman who seems to be completely out of options and on her way to a grisly end but then she has the fortitude to leap out of the car trunk in which she has been imprisoned and to gouge her kidnapper's eyes out with a pair of jumper cables. If you're the kind of reader who thinks "well THAT would never happen" then maybe put this book lower on your list.

But maybe you just like rando characters being thrown at you across every page who have tickling fetishes, or a pathological need to bounce on trampolines, or some other remarkable maybe-perverted thing going with them. Then this book will hit your sweet spot. What I mean to say is this book is very fine at what it does. It's remarkably witty. It's boyishly exuberant in a decidedly high-schooly way, with many many anecdotes about unlikely ejaculations, and forced ejaculations, and premature ejaculations, and penis-busting ejaculations, and embarrassing and not-embarrassing ejaculations, and a few more ejaculations after that. None of these comments is meant as criticism. I really did love reading this novel. I never need to read it again.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Liarmouth,” he says with a missing-tooth grin. Liarmouth? That’s even better! Say it again, she begs him inside her head. He does. Only this time he pauses teasingly between syllables. “Liar…mouth,” he whispers, daring her dishonesty to rise up from her throat again. How can one word, even one made up from two separate words put together, melt away her lifetime of carnal caution, she wonders silently.

I was looking for something mindless, hopefully something entertaining, so why not John Waters’ first novel Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance? I knew what I was getting into with Waters — in the early days of VCRs, my friends and I would watch rented tapes of Polyester and the original Hairspray on repeat — but while this was campy with bizarre details, I don’t think it went far enough for my tastes: not truly transgressive or envelope-pushing, it almost felt like the world has moved on and Waters is still telling the same dirty jokes from the 1980s. Not a waste of my time — I did have some laughs and cringes — and fans of Waters’ films will no doubt enjoy the cinematic beats of the storyline even more than I did. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

“We all gotta make a living,” Daryl says with a shrug as he puts the final feather handcuff around Ritchie’s wrist. Christ, he thinks as he looks around at all the creepy framed Tickle Me Elmo portraits hanging on the walls, what a conman has to do to hide out from the police these days.

Sexpot forty-something Marsha Sprinkle is a liar and a hustler — squatting in foreclosed McMansions, fencing items from stolen luggage — and after promising to sleep with her partner in crime, Daryl, if he posed as her chauffeur for a year, the year is up, Daryl is, um, impassioned, and Marsha has no intention of honouring her deal. When they go to the airport to make what Marsha decides will be their final heist as a team, the con goes wrong, the pair run from the police in opposite directions, and the plot becomes a gonzo planes, trains, and automobiles road trip with Marsha trying to get to her ex-husband for overdue revenge and Daryl trying to get to Marsha. Along the way they cross paths with: a tickle fetishist; a hobo kidnapper; outlaw trampoline radicals on the run; an unlicensed pet plastic surgeon; a psychic talking penis; bouncers, flouncers, rimmers, and frotterers. Just about everyone is trying to have alternative sexy time, but when an act occurs, it felt kind of charming:

In. Out. Not like that burger place in L.A., but like a souped-up piston that grinds to perfection. She’s the master. He’s the johnson. And together they redefine human sexual response.

As for my feeling that Waters was stuck in time: He still populates his storytelling with cartoonish drag queens, overweight women, and transvestite sex workers. His cultural references run along the lines of Evel Knieval, Uri Geller, the Amazing Kreskin, and the “diet doctor murderess” Jean Harris; references I get because I was also alive in the 70s. But he also hearkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, with one chapter alone using Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Janet Leigh, and Tippi Hedren to make analogies; and, yes, I know who they are but they just don’t feel relevant. He discusses kinks like a naughty schoolboy, without actually showing much, and as the plot eventually takes on some fantastical/magical realism elements (that make for undoubtedly cinematic mental visuals), I didn’t feel a lot of tension in the plot despite this sort of thing:

Marsha Sprinkle may have accidentally outfoxed them once with the tricky little ambulance maneuver but that will be the last time she escapes. The last time she steals. The last time she’ll be a bad parent. The last time she doesn’t respect her own mother. The last time she stiffs a stiffie of his rightful wage. Today will be Marsha Sprinkle’s last day on earth, period.

Ultimately, this did fit the bill as mindless and mostly entertaining, but this would probably be of more value to someone who has followed Waters’ career more closely than I did. Good, not great.

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly outrageous and deeply hilarious

[Jason McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. 63%. I'm a huge fan but I guess there's a reason John Waters films are usually only 80 minutes long... this went from okay to annoying to stupid to so fucking annoying I can't continue any longer.

[Laura Brower · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Waters at his best, never actually read any of his fiction before, only seen the films, but the whole ethos and style translates so well to a different medium and allows one to linger over the filthy and derisive insaneness

[Daniel Montague · Rating 3 out of 5]

“He concentrates on the most unerotic thoughts imaginable; jail food HIV testing, square dancing, dead move-star vulvas; anything to keep him from coming.”
2.5 stars bumped to 3 stars because John Waters is a boss.
“Liarmouth” is ostensibly about a rotten person named Marsha Sprinkle who has conned and deceived a litany of people and is going to face her comeuppance. In reality it is a chance to get in the delightfully demented mind of auteur John Waters who decided to pen his first work of fiction. Undoubtedly Waters is a man of many talents who has crafted a unique style that has elevated many of those who are considered outcasts. Even in the most absurd of circumstances he is able to find a shred of humanity. Unfortunately, this medium does not seem to absorb his gonzo stylings as well as the cinema. This is a mixed bag that starts out fairly entertaining but gets repetitive and stale.
What I Enjoyed
This is a novel with no redeeming characters. Normally this not a positive but Waters is able to turn their despicable nature into grist. The characters are hedonistic, self-centered and reject the world at large. The character with the most heart is the autonomous cock of Marsha’s underling Daryl known as Richard. Even with his constant spewing of fluids, Richard is the feel good character who realizes that in spite of Daryl’s protestations he is attracted to men. Another thing that stuck out was the delight that Waters had spoofing modern times. Whether it is Adora, the mother of Marsha who has spent a fortune on plastic surgery for her dog Surprize or the annual Anilingus Festival held in Provincetown, Waters takes great glee. He also mocks the cult-like followers of Marsha’s daughter, Poppy. These disciples of Poppy great passion is bouncing, preferably on a trampoline or surface that has rebounding properties. In their quest to achieve this high they are oblivious to their surroundings and are reminiscent of the Merry Pranksters of the 1960s.
What Did Not Work for Me
Even with details that get filled in as the story progresses, it is difficult for me to feel any sense of relief let alone joy when someone as despicable as Marsha gets anything positive so the ending fell flat. Her whole allure was that she would gut a nun for a Gucci bag so the trope ending, no matter how odd still felt contrived. There are certain things you expect from John Waters and he delivered. The “King of Camp” has plenty of shit, piss, jizz, ass-licking and blood in this novel but after a while you become immune to it. It loses its punch and just becomes boring, feeling like a contrivance. Though on the shorter side it is still more time consuming than a movie (at least for non-speed demons such as myself). This length hinders the shock value and then we are left with a meandering story and a host of oddball characters that did not resonate with me.
Overall, if you a devotee of Waters or just mind don’t characters with few redeemable traits than this could be for you. There are probably sharp societal critiques that I have missed but despite the fun opening chapters the story never progressed to be noteworthy and is not a novel I will probably remember unless I get my luggage stolen, am on a bus ride from Hell or have my penis develop autonomy.

[Ella Dixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. John Waters is my horny gay grandpa and that will never change! I've really enjoyed the films of his that I have seen and I had the opportunity to see him at City Winery a couple of years ago and loved his off-the-wall and pervy brands of humor. But I have to admit that there was something very off about this novel. The premise sounds like a classic Waters shitshow and hilarious read, but the writing was lacking and often redundant. It took me so long to read this novel that I'm almost off my reading track for the year and I considered not finishing it, despite supporting Waters' work as a whole. But I refuse to DNF so I slogged through and made it! And it only took me nine days (this is very bad).
I grew up reading the Southern Gothic fiction of Flannery O'Connor (my absolute queen) and Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers. Wacky characters and unlikely plots and absurdly backwards comedy? All my bread and butter. So I expected to love this northeastern-adapted version from one of the most infamous queer writers of my lifetime. Liarmouth delivered in the first portion of the book. It was perfectly heinous and the characters shone as icons of a new generation of queer allegory. But as the narrative progressed, they were outshone by the ever-changing ideology they followed. I don't know how many times I heard about people bouncing, rolling, shaking, levitating, and all other modes of nontraditional transport, but I quickly tired of the many ways they were all described. I get that it's supposed to be overdone but it was a challenge to stay interested in this story.
I was also confused by the shifting of perspective between fucked-up protagonist Marsha and her hated daughter, Poppy. Their worlds collided and ebbed so quickly and featured so many distinct characters with three-item descriptors attached each time they were mentioned. Every sentence was a challenge to untangle and like...not in a fun way. I wanted to embrace the wacky Waters world but it's drowning in too many things happening that aren't really anything other than a distracting device. There was little plot other than anger and vengeance among the nuclear Sprinkle family and they involved so many people along their crusade up and down the eastern seaboard. People's identifiers also shifted as the story progressed, with even Marsha assuming numerous fake identities. Eventually, I gave up on keeping track of who-was-who and just tried to vibe with the plotless anger.
Until! Finally! Near the last quarter of the book, the novel remembered that it was supposed to be "A Feel-Bad Romance" and the leading man was introduced. Lester, an absolute dog of a man, somehow instantaneously convinces Martha to quit lying because she's suddenly horny at age 60-something? I was trying to just go along with the flow of the story, but this sudden re-alignment with a plot-driven narrative made my head spin and confused me more than the crazy moving fads of Poppy and her friends. Lester is larger than life and maybe not entirely human and I wanted to understand his attraction to Marsha without the rush of the novel's conclusion. I was not granted that wish.
I love John Waters and I think that his films get at the absurdity of regular life and all that can exist within this reality. There are so many fucked up things that happen in this world and I love an artist who can harness them and show us new ways to accept a coming age. But I think this novel is half-baked and reads as almost unedited (like, at all) and might have been purchased more for his name than the actual story. I wish that Waters' new work was able to captivate me as much as his revolutionary earlier work but I think I'll stick to the classics.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Waters is a national treasure, and that’s all there is to it. Liarmouth is 100% what you’d expect from a John Waters book. It’s got filth, perversion, and other fun things that make regular folks uncomfortable! You need to either know exactly what you’re getting into or be open-minded with a sick sense of humor. If you aren’t sure if Liarmouth is for you, watch “Pink Flamingoes.” That’s an excellent starting point into Mr. Waters’ work and will give you a decent idea of how this book may play out.

This book is for those that require a less than serious read, though I feel as if that kind of goes without saying.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, the publisher, and John Waters for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Auntie Raye-Raye]

John Waters is my Lord and Savior. It's blasphemous that I did not like this.

[Leighanna]

There was a moment about 20% into Liarmouth when I forgot I was reading a novel from the warped mind of John Waters and just could not go on. It was just too absurd. Who in their right mind...? And then I remembered, and I settled in and enjoyed the ride. Liarmouth is just as funny and deranged as anything you would expect from Waters, especially from the 80s forward. The danger of the Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos era is absent from this novel, but Liarmouth carves out a perfect space for itself among Waters's later work.

Liarmouth is a known quantity. It is full-on John Waters. It's well-written chaos and filth and impossibilities that are made believable by the sheer insistence that you should believe them. It's camp, and it's gross. It's offensive, and it's a little bit mean and a little bit sweet at the same time. If you love John Waters, you'll probably love Liarmouth. If you don't love him or aren't familiar with his work, well, your mileage may vary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing a digital ARC for review.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's John Waters. So what do you expect. Having enjoyed his more than generous memoirs and, shall we say appreciated, his filmwork, I was curious to see if his edge had been smoothed as he approaches his mid 70's. I was thrilled to find, it hasn't. There is somewhat of a plot featuring the most anti-heroic heroine, but if you're looking for a plot synopsis, look elsewhere. How Waters can wring so much absurdity in many of the set pieces (one in a laundromat in particular made me laugh longest), but this is more of a wild ride than anything else. One side note, I give thanks to FSG for making me an early reader, and see that in his Acknowledgments Waters thanks his editor, Bill Clegg, who himself wrote some generous memoirs and one of my favorite novels, and is credited with "...being a voice of reason . . . even in the midst of fictitious anarchy." That last phrase sums this up best of all.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars for Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance (audiobook) by John Waters read by the author.

This is a crazy romance from the dirty mind of John Waters. The author brings a new group of difunctional characters together and chaos ensues. The characters and situations are bizarre and fun.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Liar, he says with a smirk. She likes the way he says that word. Liar. Yes, she is, and she wishes she could shout that fact from the rooftops of every nation in this whole wide world."

John Waters is one of my favorite people that roam this earth. His movies and books have gotten me through some tough times in my life and I owe him a lot. How can you not say all of this about a man who brought us, Serial Mom, Hairspray, and Pink Flamingos!? He's a genius.

Prepare to be uncomfortable! ♥

Liarmouth was out there and I didn't expect anything different. Only John Waters could write something as crazy as this. You definitely know it's something by the great Waters once you get to that annual festival and the talking penis. It was messy, hilarious, filthy, and totally bizarre. I loved it!

[Bryan House · Rating 1 out of 5]

A contender for worst book I've ever read.
I'm not even sure why I finished it.

Its shocking to me that it even exists, like I bought this at a legitimate book store...

[od1_40reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

“KILL EVERYONE NOW!” 🦩

As much as John Waters is a queer international treasure (because of which I immediately wanted to love this book), after the initial hilarity of trampolining drag queens, talking penises and dogs undergoing cosmetic surgery to look like Joan Rivers… for me, the narrative couldn’t quite stand up for the entire novel, and I did find myself skim reading the latter half of the book.

BUT, WE STILL LOVE YOU JOHN WATERS!! ❤️🌈

[Emma Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

so sorry but will not be finishing this one I fear; I was having a lot of fun but too much of a good thing yadda yadda yadda. halfway through and every time I open it I’m picking up where one of the two main characters is actively talking to his own anthropomorphized broken penis and that’s making it real tough for me personally

[Lewis Szymanski · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book gave me cancer.

I knew this would be bad and stupid, but it was worse than I expected. It reads like the first revision of a rough draft if the revision was abandoned halfway through. This is a sloppy third-person omniscient narrator describing the thoughts and actions of awful people doing awful things. When the book starts, there are line breaks when there is a perspective change, but as the book progresses these become haphazard and then are abandoned. I was expecting a naturalistic style, and it started out that way. The story becomes more absurd the further it gets.

I like John Waters. I don't like his movies. Hairspray is the only one I've watched all the way through. I like watching and listening to him be interviewed whenever he releases a new weird project. Even better is when Terry Gross interviews him. Even better when he shows up in a film documentary. I like him as a cultural icon that I believe has helped change our culture for the better. I've read a few of his previous books and enjoyed them.

I can't recommend this to anybody. This book is bad. If John Waters writes another novel, I will not be reading it. If he writes another memoir or even some short fiction, I probably will read it.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

frankly an exhausting read. quickly into the novel i realized that most of the joy i take from waters’ films is his visual style, his collaborations, the way all that comes together onscreen. none of that here, so it’s just a slog of sOOoOO RanDoM scenes and bad jokes. the last third is downright painful.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

oh.

[jocelyn • coolgalreading]

what the fuck did I just read lol

[Deacon Tom (Feeling Better) · Rating 1 out of 5]

An absolute waste of time, energy and breath.

[Žarko]

Volim filmove i prozu i stendape Džona Votersa, al ovo mi nije leglo.

Vrcavo je i zabavno i skrnavo i Votersovština je nekako odmah na 11 i ostaje na 11, u početku sam vrištao od smeha na svaku scenu i slao citate drugarima, al sam se zasitio a nisam pregurao trećinu.

Pisanje mi je bilo čudno, dok sam čitao čuo sam Votersa kako ovo preglumljuje iz sve snage, i sa zadovoljstvom sam našao da postoji audioknjiga i da je on narator, pa bih možda to preporučio sebi za kasnije...

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this man and everything he stands for.


Might as well follow suit with other reviewers and place the obligatory quote here:

“I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.”

Which we know of course as fans that is not true at all. He has been massively important to social progress. And this book is another addition. Not his best work, but silly, irreverent, campy and nasty, maybe it will get some people to lighten the fuck up in what is an increasingly shitty world.

[Dylan Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of all over the place but comes together

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. John Waters in all his hilarious and gross-out glory. I hear they’re making a movie out of this book—that will be something to see!

[Kenzi Cobb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy hell, what the fork was that?

But also like… why couldn’t I put it down?

“Even god thought she was a cunt.”