num_pages: 375
description: Girl with Curious Hair is a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace, first published in 1990. Though they are not related, many of the stories share the theme of society's fascination with celebrity, some using real celebrities, including Alex Trebek, David Letterman and Lyndon Johnson, as fictional characters. Several stories also mock or criticise what Wallace saw as negative trends in the literary scene, including the cynical, amoral realism of 1980s "Brat Pack" writers such as Bret Easton Ellis, as well as postmodern literary criticism and metafiction. A novella, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way", draws heavily on John Barth's metafictional short story "Lost in the Funhouse".
language: English
title: Girl With Curious Hair
titlecomplete: Girl With Curious Hair (Contemporary American Fiction)
genres: Literary Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, Americana, Collections, 20th Century, The United States Of America, American
ratings_count: 13952
awards: name: O. Henry Award
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company