Remarkable, hilarious, and unsettling re-imaginations of reality by the bestselling author of Infinite Jest, “a dynamic writer of extraordinary talent” (The 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.
“These stories say something serious and sincere about the world that the rest of us have to live in.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Turns the short story upside down and inside out, making the adjectives 'inventive,' 'unique,' and 'original' seem blasé.” —T. C. Boyle, New York Times–bestselling author
“A collection of stories as varied in length and theme as they are imaginative, and downright bizarre as any collection by one author has a right to be . . . Truly funny surreal humor.” —San Francisco Chronicle
David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he became a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College. His books include the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Oblivion andthe essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.