Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) is a collection of twenty-three short stories by David Foster Wallace. Several of the stories, all entitled "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," in the collection are presented as the transcripts of interviews with male subjects. Each male has some repulsive characteristic which they elaborate upon. The questions of the hypothetical interviewer are omitted from the transcripts, allowing the stories to focus on the men themselves. These stories set the tone for the rest of the collection which is characterized by dark dry humor, alienation, and bizarre sexuality.
In 1997 Wallace was awarded the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by editors of The Paris Review for “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men #6" which had appeared in the magazine.
Actor John Krasinski of The Office has adapted and directed a film version for release in 2008 based on the "Brief Interviews" stories. Julianne Nicholson plays Sara Quinn, the interviewer unnamed in the stories.
[edit] List of Stories
- "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life"
- "Death Is Not the End"
- "Forever Overhead"
- "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
- "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI)"
- "The Depressed Person"
- "The Devil Is a Busy Man"
- "Think"
- "Signifying Nothing"
- "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
- "Datum Centurio"
- "Octet"
- "Adult World (I)"
- "Adult World (II)"
- "The Devil Is a Busy Man"
- "Church Not Made with Hands
- "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VI)"
- "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
- "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko"
- "On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon"
- "Suicide as a Sort of Present"
- "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
- "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XXIV)"
