Remarkable, hilarious, and unsettling re-imaginations of reality by "a dynamic writer of extraordinary talent" (New York Times Book Review).
David Foster Wallace was one of America's most prodigiously talented and original young writers, and Girl with Curious Hair displays the full range of his gifts. From the eerily "real," almost holographic evocations of historical figures such as Lyndon Johnson and overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, in which terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, the familiar strange.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Wallace caused a critical stir with his first novel, The Broom of the System , and this volume of stories is likely to attract equal attention. His publisher talks about post -postmodernism, whatever that means, but there is a highly unusual eye and ear at work here, and an impressive armory of writerly skills. All too often, however, the stories seem like dazzling exercises, show-off pieces designed to provoke applause rather than expressions of a consistent vision. Two stories about the morbidly incestuous world of TV, ``Little Expressionless Animals'' and ``My Appearance,'' catch perfectly the obsessiveness and fatuity of quiz- and talk-show people, and ``Lyndon'' is a tour de force in which the late president looms very large indeed. The title story is an experiment in the outre, about a grotesque Los Angeles yuppie and his punk friends, that seems designed to shock rather than illuminate. In ``Say Never'' Wallace enters an Isaac Bashevis Singer world, though naturally he gives it an odd twist. And the longest and most ambitious story, ``Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way,'' deliberately flaunts writing-school experimentalism in its overwritten, satirical account of a Midwestern reunion of actors in McDonald's ads. Wallace has talent to burn, and is an endlessly inventive storyteller, but one wishes he wasn't also such an exhibitionist. (Aug.)
Library Journal
In assessing this book, comparisons with Don DeLillo, Tom Robbins, and Robert Coover seem accurate, for Wallace is playful, idiomatically sharp, and intellectually engage. Overwhelming in his long, torrential sentences and his wit, he at times subjects us to overwritten, almost showy, passages, but his talent is undeniable. Included in this collection is a novella that examines, among other things, post-modernism. His (generally overlong) stories explore popular culture through the lives of a variety of characters: a lesbian with a three-year winning streak on Jeopardy, an actress anxious about appearing on David Letterman, a wealthy Republican yuppie who has a disturbing connection with some punk rockers; and Lyndon Johnson in a closeup that shows how well a historical figure can be used in fiction. Impressive in scope and savvy.-- Peter Bricklebank, City Coll., CUNY
Madison Smartt Bell
These stories are serious and sincere about the world the rest of us have to live in.
-- Washington Post Book World
Jennifer Levin
A dynamic writer of extraordinary talent -- Mr. Wallace brings us, time and again, to mythic places that are strange yet oddly familiar. He succeeds in restoring grandeur to modern fiction.
-- New York Times Book Review
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