Girl with Curious Hair - Wikipedia





	
	

	
	

	Girl with Curious Hair

	
		From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

		

		

		
		

		Jump to navigation
		Jump to search
		Girl with Curious Hair 	Cover of Abacus 1997 reprint

	Author	David Foster Wallace
	Country	United States
	Language	English
	Publisher	W. W. Norton & Company
	Publication date
	August 1989
	Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
	Pages	373pp
	ISBN	0-349-11102-2


Girl with Curious Hair is a collection of short stories by American writer David Foster Wallace, first published in 1989. Though the stories are not related, several reflect Wallace's concern with contemporary trends in fiction, including metafiction and the irony of postmodernism; and the cynical, amoral realism of "Brat Pack" writers such as Bret Easton Ellis. Others address society's fascination with celebrity, some with characters based on real people, including Alex Trebek, David Letterman and Lyndon Johnson. A novella, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way", closes the book, as an extended response to John Barth's metafictional short story "Lost in the Funhouse".[1]


List of stories[edit]

	"Little Expressionless Animals" revolves around a unique winning streak on the TV game show Jeopardy!, and the coming together of two lesbians with abnormal childhoods.
	"Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR", in which two executives at an unnamed corporation meet in the underground parking lot while leaving late, and the senior executive suddenly has a heart attack.
	"Girl with Curious Hair". A sadistic young Republican lawyer who associates with punk rockers spends an evening with his drugged friends at a Keith Jarrett concert, where his LSD-influenced girlfriend is obsessed with a girl with curious hair.
	"Lyndon". A fictional account of a young man named David Boyd working closely with American president Lyndon B. Johnson and getting entangled personally.
	"John Billy". A narrator with an exaggerated southern dialect recounts the tale of his town's favorite son, Chuck Nunn Junior, and the consequences of his quest for revenge. The story explores local mythology.
	"Here and There". A boy and girl relate the story of their relationship simultaneously.
	"My Appearance". An actress appears on Late Night with David Letterman while her television producer husband obsessively coaches her. According to Boswell, it is the "most important and successful story" in the collection.[2] First published in Playboy magazine as "Late Night".
	"Say Never". A study of a circle of Chicago[3] Jews centering on one man's declaration of his adultery.
	"Everything Is Green". The shortest story continues the collection's "exploration of interiority/exteriority".[4]
	"Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way". According to Boswell, this 150-page novella is, "Taken on its own ... an engaging piece of pretentious juvenilia; read as a precursor to Infinite Jest, it stands as a fascinating programmatic declaration of intent."[5]


References[edit]


	^ Boswell, 102 et seq.

	^ Boswell, 93

	^ 
Wallace, David Foster (1989). Girl with Curious Hair. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 211, 213, 214, 217–8.

	^ Boswell, 100

	^ Boswell, 102





Sources[edit]

	
Boswell, Marshall (2003). Understanding David Foster Wallace. Understanding contemporary American literature. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 9781570035173.


		v
	t
	e


Works by David Foster Wallace

	Novels	
	The Broom of the System (1987)
	Infinite Jest (1996)
	The Pale King (2011)




	Story collections	
	Girl with Curious Hair (1989)
	Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)
	film


	Oblivion (2004)




	Nonfiction	
	Signifying Rappers (1990)
	A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997)
	Up, Simba! (McCain's Promise)  (2000)
	Everything and More (2003)
	Consider the Lobster (2005)
	This Is Water (2009)
	Fate, Time, and Language (2011)
	Both Flesh and Not (2012)




	Works about Wallace	
	Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself (2010)
	Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story (2013)
	The End of the Tour (2015)




	Related articles	
	Infinite Summer











		This article about a collection of short stories is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
	v
	t
	e













Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Girl_with_Curious_Hair&oldid=926928865"


		Categories: 	1989 short story collections
	Short story collections by David Foster Wallace
	W. W. Norton & Company books
	Short story collection stubs


Hidden categories: 	All stub articles




	




	





	Navigation menu

	
		

	
		Personal tools
	

	
			Not logged in
	Talk
	Contributions
	Create account
	Log in


		
	



		
			

	
		Namespaces
	

	
			Article
	Talk


		
	



			

	
	
		Variants
	

	
		

		
	



		

		
			

	
		Views
	

	
			Read
	Edit
	View history


		
	



			

	
	
		More
	

	
		

		
	



			
	
		Search
	

	
		
			
			
			
			
		

	




		

	

	

	
		
	

	

	
		Navigation
	

	
			Main page
	Contents
	Current events
	Random article
	About Wikipedia
	Contact us
	Donate


		
	



	

	
		Contribute
	

	
			Help
	Learn to edit
	Community portal
	Recent changes
	Upload file


		
	




	
		Tools
	

	
			What links here
	Related changes
	Upload file
	Special pages
	Permanent link
	Page information
	Cite this page
	Wikidata item


		
	




	
		Print/export
	

	
			Download as PDF
	Printable version


		
	



	

	
		Languages
	

	
			Italiano
	עברית


		Edit links

	









		 This page was last edited on 19 November 2019, at 08:53 (UTC).
	Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply.  By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



		Privacy policy
	About Wikipedia
	Disclaimers
	Contact Wikipedia
	Mobile view
	Developers
	Statistics
	Cookie statement