Bad haircut1994

Tom Perrotta has created a memorable young protagonist named Buddy in this unsentimental, often hilarious collection of short stories. Bad Haircut follows Buddy's boyhood and adolescent adventures as he struggles to understand the mysteries of race relations, sex, family dynamics - and haircuts.

The setting is a working-class town in New Jersey. The time is the overlooked decade of the Seventies, with its vanished cultural landscape of platform shoes, hard rock, and the lingering aftershocks of the Vietnam war. But the joys and agonies of Buddy's coming of age are those of any young person, anywhere, anytime. "In a literary day when too many bland stories of growing up abound, Tom Perrotta's crystal clear and cutting vision shines through," says Bret Lott, author of Jewel and Reed's...