Girl with Curious Hair is a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace first published in 1989. Though the stories are not related, many of them 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 of the stories also mock or criticize what Wallace saw as bad trends in the literary scene, including the cynical, amoral realism of 1980 "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".
List of stories [edit]
Little Expressionless Animals
A story revolving around the set of the TV game show Jeopardy!, and the coming together of two girls with abnormal childhoods
Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR
A simple story 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 rich young Republican living an alternate life steeped in punk rock and sadism spends an evening at a Keith Jarrett concert in Irvine, where his LSD-influenced girlfriend is distracted by 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
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.
Say Never
Everything Is Green
Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
