Dancing Queen: The Bawdy Adventures of Lisa Crystal Carver

Maybe lusty isn't quite the word. Maybe raunchy would be better. In these 16 essays, Carver hilariously celebrates her various obsessions, such as sex, ""trashy"" stuff and herself. This is a lot more amusing than it might seem, even if you're not the type who's interested in someone else's sexual fantasies, hairstyles and ruminations about Anna Nicole Smith, Lawrence Welk, K mart, white trash, underwear, Olivia Newton-John, Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan (whom she labels ""The Rat Fink and Princess Horsie"") and other cultural detritus. The book is worth buying for her roundup of romance novel genres alone. ""The plot was a bunch of rich people go shopping,"" says Carver, perfectly summing up Scruples, although she does appreciate Judith Krantz's ability to write sex scenes. ""The delicious Judith Krantz formula is that something horrible happens to you--like your brother or a female neighbor seduces you against your will--thus you don't have to admit to wanting sex but you get to have it anyway."" Carver's prose is smart, sassy, even endearing. Carver, who has put out a popular 'zine called Rollerderby, sums up her own personality, which is completely reflected in her writing: ""I'm zesty and smart and cute and sleazy and direct and confrontational."" she says, adding on a more serious note that ""Poverty, all the sleazy pleasures and nowhere-left-to-fall freedoms it brings, is half of what made me what I am. The other half of me comes from scrambling to get out."" Perhaps she's not to everyone's taste, but in a world of cultural pretension, campy posing and clumsy writing, her feisty and fresh voice is a tonic. (Oct.)