Girl With Curious Hair

Literary fiction · Dark comedy · Satire

First published: 1988
Print length: 373 pagesAvon Books, 1991

Description

Across unrelated stories and a closing novella, David Foster Wallace turns celebrity culture, television, politics, entertainment, and storytelling itself into arenas of manipulation and uneasy performance. An extraordinary Jeopardy! winning streak intersects with the meeting of two women marked by troubled childhoods; a drug-fueled concert outing exposes a cruel young lawyer and his girlfriend’s fixation on a mysterious girl; and a political aide’s work with Lyndon B. Johnson becomes personally entangling. Elsewhere, an actress submits to obsessive coaching before a late-night television appearance, while a community transforms revenge into local myth. Shifting voices and metafictional devices repeatedly unsettle the authority of each narrative. The collection combines postmodern irony with cynical realism to probe fame, power, self-invention, and the stories people use to control one another.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dense · Experimental · Fragmentary · Witty

Pace

Variable

Tone

Cerebral · Dark · Satirical

Structure

Anthology · Fragmented

Focus

Character · Ideas · Voice

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 5 / 5
Ideas: 5 / 5
Structure: 5 / 5
Background knowledge: 3 / 5

Themes

Art and creativityIdentityObsessionPolitics and ideologyPower

About David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and professor, best known for Infinite Jest. His work moves between dense, formally experimental fiction and nonfiction that can sound conversational even as it develops intricate arguments. Long, branching sentences, specialized or invented language, shifting voices, and disruptive footnotes are central to his method; he described the notes as a way to interrupt linear narrative while preserving readability and reflecting the texture of experience. Across fiction and essays, Wallace examined entertainment, appetite, self-consciousness, and the habits of irony in a media-saturated culture, returning to the difficulty of sincere communication and the fear of being alone. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster turn cruises, fairs, politics, usage disputes, and public spectacles into comic, morally alert scrutiny. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men uses omissions, fragments, and compromised speakers to probe sexual power and self-deception. What distinguishes Wallace is the pressure he puts on form itself, making digression and excess serve sustained attention to other minds.