Published in 1988
86 pages
Dorothy Karen “Cookie” Mueller (1949 –1989) was an American actress, writer, and Dreamlander who starred in many of filmmaker John Waters’ early films, including Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living. Mueller wrote the health column “Ask Dr. Mueller” for the East Village Eye and later served as art critic for Details. Mueller’s books, How to Get Rid Of Pimples (with photos by David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar) (1984, Top Stories #19-20); Ask Doctor Mueller (1996), a collection of her writings; Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black (1990), a memoir; and Garden of Ashes (Hanuman Books, 1990) are cult classics. Other works include the novella Fan Mail, Frank Letters, and Crank Calls (Hanuman Books, 1988) and several collections of short prose.
What is this book about?
One of the books (No. 15) in the highly collectible Hamuman Books (series III (13-18). It is a small book of stories and observations by Mueller, who was a flamboyant member of John Waters’ acting troupe as well as a writer and designer. Hanuman Books was a series of books published between 1986 and 1993 out of the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. Featuring some of the biggest names in avant-garde culture of the time – including figures from Beat poetry, gay and trans culture, Warhol’s Factory, San Francisco’s North Beach and New York’s Lower East Side art scenes, the Naropa Institute, contemporary music and film – the series has since acquired a cult following.
Fan Mail, Frank Letters, and Crank Calls was one of two Hanuman titles whose shipment from the Madras printer to New York was imperiled by obscenity charges, in this case due to a photo of a Priapus statue looking very like himself. Unimpeachably classical, but as Mueller herself notes in one Letter, “a little antiquity goes a long way.”
