My Son Divine

No mother wants to watch her son eat dog poop, as Frances Milstead, mother of the gifted actor and outrageous drag persona Divine (1945-1988) would agree. Divine asked her not to see the John Waters film Pink Flamingos, in which the unforgettable poop-noshing scene occurs, and she has abided by his wishes. To her credit, though, she proudly describes the scene and its aftermath, in which Divine's friends overheard him calling an emergency room to ask what diseases his 12-year-old son might have picked up from eating a dog turd ("Yes, well, he's a little retarded."). Clearly Milstead is no ordinary mother. Page after page she provides a remarkably unembarrassed view of her son's adventures on and off screen. With amusing childhood details for true devotees of Divine, plenty of new photos, and judicious quoting from other sources, such as John Waters and his friend and producer Pat Moran, My Son Divine serves as a corrective to Bernard Jay's harshly drawn Not Simply Divine, and offers a warm, entertaining version of the drag star's life. --Regina Marler