Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller (High Risk Books) [Paperback]

Cookie Mueller (Author)

Book Description

Series: High Risk Books | Publication Date: February 1, 1996

Cookie Mueller was a fiction writer, cult movie star and art critic in New York until her death from AIDS in 1989. Included here are highlights from her art columns for "Detail" magazine, her agony aunt column, and her strongest pieces of fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Cookie Mueller occupies that odd niche in U.S. popular culture in which cult fame is enhanced by mainstream obscurity. Lauded in the New York gay underground art scene for her subversive fiction, idiosyncratic art reviews, and life-as-performance personality, Mueller, who died of AIDS in 1989, did everything from appear in John Waters's Multiple Maniacs as Divine's daughter to writing a weekly surrealistic, drug-induced advice column in the East Village Other. Still, hardly anyone knows who she is. Ask Dr. Mueller collects most of her prose and showcases her vision and style, which are as original as they are smart, and her all-out assault on propriety and decency is both witty and refreshing. Even in death, Mueller manages to shock and entertain us, and, with the publication of this book, may finally find the fame she deserves.

From Library Journal

Mueller (1949-89) was a writer, underground actress, and world vagabond. Having come of age in the late Sixties, she did drugs, cruised the New York City art scene, and bummed rides. This compilation of Mueller's semiautobiographical essays, columns, and fiction begins with nine previously unpublished pieces and includes stories from an earlier collection, Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black (Autonomedia, 1990). There are also excerpts from a humorous, unorthodox medical-advice column that Mueller fabricated for readers of the East Village Eye and reprints of an anecdotal column she wrote as an art commentator for Details magazine. Her unabashed reflections reveal her to be a talented social critic made wise by her subcultural life. Her stories are amusing, unpretentious, and sometimes lewd, providing insight into a risky, bygone lifestyle that the more adventurous baby-boomers will recall with nostalgia. Recommended for all general collections.?Carol A. McAllister, Coll. of William & Mary Lib., Williamsburg, Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852423315
• ISBN-13: 978-1852423315
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Putting Courtney Love's schtick to shame, December 18, 1999

By 

Jill Van Vliet - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

Cookie Mueller was a rare bird, indeed. Although a dark-hearted urban creature of Manhattan, she was also a natural-born writer, and more than that, a risk-taker who made no apologies and was able to maintain an insightful eloquence about her mistakes and triumphs.

What triumphs could those be, you ask? A junkie freak with a penchant for public urination? Her written documentation is the parallel of the photography of Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark. She reported her milieu without much sympathy and her readers are the wiser for it.

Don't read this if: you are squeamish about drugs, ambivalent sexuality or bodily functions. Also don't attempt it if: you tend to glorify the rot of drug addiction, death, and/or perversion. Either way, you'll be disappointed. Do read it if: you're a fan of the unvarnished stuff of life, told in fanciful reportage, with little self-consciousness.

I think Cookie would approve if I close by saying that these collected essays are perfect toilet reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many books in one!!!, July 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

This is a great book. It has the complete "Garden of Ashes" and "Crank Calls" books that are now out of print. Plus most of the book "Walking through Clear Water". Also included are works from newspapers and magazines, as well as unreleased stories. My only complaint is that the only pictures of her are on the front and back cover. The most complete Cookie Mueller book to date.

Also recommended:

"Walking Through Clear Water" is small and convenient to carry around. It has 2 stories not included in "Ask Doctor Mueller"

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crazy life and times, March 9, 2006

By 

Guy Forsythe "sky pops" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

What a life Cookie Mueller lived! I don't know how she survived thru John Waters, single mom, the 70's, the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It's so amazing to read her writing and not think that she is fabricating --but the more I read, the more I'm convinced she is NOT making it up. This woman was never a big celebrity or anything in her day (Unfortunately, she died of AIDS in 1989). Read this book and you will wonder why she didn't get famous. I could see her on Oprah or Sally Jessy Raphael. No it's not all fun and games -she had some seriously horrid things happen to her, and these cannot be played down. Just the stories she can tell. ...and I see her gift for writing. All I can say is "Read this book!"