Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies by Tom Perrotta

Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies by Tom Perrotta

New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta's first book is more powerful than any coming-of-age novel --The Washington Post

Bad Haircut explores the themes that have fascinated Perrotta throughout his career: suburban rituals and mores; sports and religion; the cheerful cheesiness of American consumer life; public tests of manliness; and the moral dilemmas faced by ordinary people, parents, and teenagers alike. Perrotta has continued to explore these subjects in novels from Election to The Abstinence Teacher.

The ten rich stories here are linked by a single protagonist: Buddy, an adolescent suburban New Jersey boy who is truly seeing his world for the first time and already finding it both mysterious and lacking. Whether he's out on a Boy Scout trip with his mother and discovering that his mother actually knows--and has a history with--the man inside the battered foam hot dog costume in The Weiner Man, feeling the first glimmer that sex might actually be possible for him in Thirteen, or finding himself swept along on a prank gone very wrong in Snowman, Buddy is both a recognizable American boy and a trademark Perrotta hero. Bad Haircut is a moving, spare book from a writer who, even this early in his career, had an assured sense of the complexity of his characters' emotional landscapes.

Born in Summit, New Jersey, Tom Perrotta developed his eye for the world amidst the songs of Bruce Springsteen and beneath the glow of dark American movies - The Graduate, Chinatown, Taxi Driver - that graced the Sixties and Seventies. He earned a B.A. in English from Yale University and then received an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Syracuse University. In 1994, Tom published his first book, Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies, a collection of shorts stories that The Washington Post called more powerful than any other coming-of-age novel.
On the heels of Bad Haircut came two more novels focused on the clash of adolescence and adulthood: The Wishbones and Election, both published to much acclaim, though it was the latter that would prove to be his breakout success. A high school election gone awry, a teacher-student affair, teenagers on the verge of adulthood - Election was a captivating satire that was instantly picked up for film and turned into a popular Paramount movie starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon.
Following Election, Tom continued to write about the humor and delight in everyday social interactions, only he shifted his focus to an older - though just as troubled - cast of characters: first with Joe College, a comic journey into the dark side of higher education, love, and food service; and then most recently with Little Children, his most ambitious novel that explores the psychological depths beneath the surface of suburbia. Little Children has been chosen for numerous Best Books of 2004 lists - including The New York Times Book Review, Newsweek, National Public Radio, and People magazine - and has garnered tremendous praise from all fronts, calling Tom an American Chekhov (New York Times) and a rare writer equally gifted at drawing people's emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes (People).
Currently, Tom lives with his wife and two children in Belmont, Massachusetts, and is working on the screenplay for Little Children writer/director Todd Field (In the Bedroom), as well as a second screenplay with ex-Frasier writer, Rob Greenberg. He plans to start his next novel when he completes those projects.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780425149423
ISBN 10	0425149420
Title	Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies
Author	Tom Perrotta
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	1995-10-01
Number of pages	1
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.