Brief Interviews with Hideous Men  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a critically acclaimed short story collection by the late American writer David Foster Wallace, first published in 1999 by Little, Brown. According to the papers in the David Foster Wallace Archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin,

List and summary of stories

• "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life" - The lack of sincerity between individuals in a "postindustrial" society
• "Death Is Not the End" - An award-winning poet lounges by a pool
• "Forever Overhead" - A boy attempts to conquer the diving tank of a public pool on his thirteenth birthday
• "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" [#14, #15, #11, #3, #30, #31, #36]
• "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI)" - A dream (or nightmare) of being a blind person
• "The Depressed Person" - The increasingly solipsistic narration of a severely depressed individual
• "The Devil Is a Busy Man" - Our inability to accept what is freely given
• "Think" - A man facing temptation has what may or may not be an epiphany
• "Signifying Nothing" - A son’s sudden recollection of a lost childhood memory leads to estrangement and reconciliation
• "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" [#40, #42, #2, #48, #51, #19, #46]
• "Datum Centurio" - Dictionary entry from almost 100 years in the future
• "Octet" - Pop quiz with a post-post-modern metafictional spin
• "Adult World (I)" - First half of a two-parter. A wife is concerned her lovemaking is hurting her husband’s penis
• "Adult World (II)" - The second half told entirely through schematic outlines and notes
• "The Devil Is a Busy Man" - The futility of attempting sincere good deeds
• "Church Not Made with Hands" - Poetically abstract meditation on art, tragedy and faith
• "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VI)" - Short transcript of a divorcing couple contemplating flipping a coin for the custody of their child
• "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" [#59, #72, #28]
• "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" - A retelling of Tristan and Isolde in futuristic-classical language and setting
• "On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon" - A dying father’s confession of his long-concealed lifelong hatred for his son
• "Suicide as a Sort of Present" - A mother’s insecurities have tragic consequence for her son
• "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" [#20] - The Granola Cruncher
• "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XXIV)" - Hair-cutting and facial mimetic in a cramped kitchen