Girl with Curious Hair is a short story written by David Foster Wallace. Released in 1989, it is the third short story in Wallace's collection of the same name and serves as a satire of the works of Bret Easton Ellis along with yuppie culture in general.
Characters[]
- "Sick Puppy" - the narrator of the story, a sociopathic Young Republican corporate liability lawyer who hangs out with punk nihilists and has a fetish for burning people
- Sandy "Gimlet" Imblum - Sick Puppy's punk lover
- Cheese - a young punk that Gimlet is friends with
- Grope - a punk that Gimlet is friends with
- Big - one of the punks that Sick Pupy hangs out with
- Mr. Wonderful - one of the punks that Sick Pupy hangs out with
- Keith Jarrett - a jazz player whom Sick Puppy and his punk friends visit
Plot[]
The day after visiting a jazz concert at the Irvine Concert Hall, a Young Republican who hangs out with punk nihilists and calls himself "Sick Puppy" recounts this concert. While driving there, Sick Puppy (accompanied by his lover Gimlet and two other punks) met with two punks on motorcycles named Cheese and Grope to sell them LSD. All of the punks drop this LSD (though Sick Puppy is not affected by drugs) and arrived at the concert late. While discussing this, Sick Puppy veers off to how he met the punks - while at a Young Republican meeting which was crashed by the punks, Sick Puppy set the beard of a Young Democrat with whom he disagreed on fire.
Having discussed this, Sick Puppy discusses how his lover Gimlet became fascinated in the hair of a young girl (which she believed had some magical powers) while Sick Puppy began a conversation with Cheese about why a respectable Young Republican like him was hanging with nihilistic punks. While discussing this, Sick Puppy veers off again to reveal his and Gimlet's fantasies about murdering his general father and bathing in his blood. Cheese soon left for the lobby and Sick Puppy followed him to continue the discussion. This soon became a discussion on happiness, which made Sick Puppy think about what makes him happy (namely, getting fellatio from women and burning them with matches) and the times that he was unhappy (which includes the time that, when he was a young boy, he attempted to recreate an act from a dirty magazine with his older sister and his father burnt his "equipment" with a lighter as punishment). Once this discussion finishes and the intermission began, Sick Puppy watched as Gimlet and another punk chased the father of the young girl (along with his girl) and knifed him.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Psycho | Bret Easton Ellis | 1991 | A novel with similar themes whose author possibly inspired this story |
| A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | 1962 | A novel with similar themes |
| The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon | 1966 | A novella with similar themes |