Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies [Paperback]

Tom Perrotta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

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 Beach. Tobias Wolff, author of This Boy's Life and The Barracks Thief, calls Bad Haircut a work of "wit and humanity and cumulative impact." As was the case with Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus, Mr. Wolff says, "Perrotta's funny and deeply touching collection marks the arrival of a writer who's here for the long haul." From his unforgettable meeting with the Wiener Man in the opening story to his poignant reflection on a neighbor's death in the collection's finale, Buddy moves on his journey to manhood in the company of such friends and enemies as Sammy Rizzo, Neil Duffy, Zirko and Cockroach. Their adventures are played out in the halls of Warren G. Harding Regional High School, on the basketball court and football field, with a band called Rockhead, and in the homes and streets of the neighborhood. Friends, enemies and even family live in a dangerous world of teen pregnancy, wife abuse and mindless streetviolence. Yet it also is a world of wit, warmth and keen perception. Readers from teens to seniors will relate to Buddy's world, some with pity and resignation, many more with understanding and hope.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Amid the current glut of '70s nostalgia, Perrotta has fashioned a moving cycle of stories that looks past the era's celebrated kitsch to still relevant social and cultural issues and the timeless mysteries of growing up. In 10 tales covering a period from the fall of 1969 to the summer of 1980, he follows the revelations of his narrator, Buddy, from his days as an eight-year-old Cub Scout through his return home from the first year of college. Set in the small New Jersey town of Darwin, these seamless, understated narratives find--in boyhood activities as ordinary as playing sports, riding a bike, taking driver's ed or going to the prom--insights into loneliness, societal violence, sexual identity, racism, mortality and much more. Perrotta eschews sentimentality and overt philosophizing, crafting in Buddy's voice a sensitivity to pregnant moments that remain unexplained and a knack for delicate, unobtrusive metaphor. Forgoing the easy irony of disco and vintage TV, he delivers a convincing portrait of a time of life, illuminating all the profound cruelty and tenderness of adolescence.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This collection of vignettes about growing up features a protagonist named Buddy. The era is the late Seventies, the place is semifictional Cranwood in northern New Jersey, and Buddy's age is pre-to late teens. No matter what the decade, growing up is growing up-painful, embarrassing, traumatic, bittersweet-and it is ably captured here. We read of Buddy's encounter with the Wiener Man, his first multispeed bike, and how friend Kevin finds a way to rip off his stepfather. As Buddy matures story by story, he moves on to his first encounter with racial hatred, time on the football team, loss of virginity, senior prom, and so on until he is ready for college. Buddy has struggled into the adult world. In the last story we find a nice young man who would be easy to like should we happen to meet him. Perrotta, a new, young, fresh writer, remembers how it was to be young and writes with humor and clarity. Recommended.
Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 042515954X
• ISBN-13: 978-0425159545
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realistic capturing of adolescence, October 14, 2000

By 

The Gooch (Temecula, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies (Paperback)

The stories in Tom Perrotta's "Bad Haircut" are deceptively simple. The subject matter of these stories is not exactly what you would consider earth-shatteringly original. Yet what makes these stories work so incredibly well are exactly those facts. I was extremely impressed at how well Perrotta was able to remember the mindset of the teenage years. He hits on so many real truths about teenagers: they way teens tend to overdramatize small events, the way otherwise nice teenagers can behave poorly due to peer pressure, the disappointment of early sexual experiences, the way early childhood dreams tend to creep into a more mundane reality, loneliness, and the realization that adults are not flawless. There were so many times in reading this book where I would be simply amazed at how right-on Perrotta was in describing an experience I went through, or a feeling I had back not all that long ago when I was a teenager myself. Because when people get older there is a tendency to laugh at the stupid things they did or thought when they were younger, sometimes in writing about teens, writers forget one of the key elements of adolescence, which is the fact that the things you laugh at taking seriously when you get older, were things that seemed legitimately important when you were younger. Because of this, oftentimes in books, TV shows, or movies about teens there is a tendency to get too overly nostalgic about the teen years and forget how during that time of your life, sometimes just getting through another day seems like a struggle. Or alternatively, it seems too many writers think that the day-to-day drama that teens create in the course of their daily lives isn't "dramatic" enough to be interesting, so instead the teenagers in many books, TV shows, or movies go through a series of contrived dramas where they act like grown-ups in kids bodies. Perrotta is able to avoid both of these pratfalls by portraying the teens years for pretty much what they are - a process of slowly growing up, experiencing new things, and coming to view the world in more realistic terms than one may have in childhood.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bad Haircut, Stange Decade, GREAT book, December 26, 2001

By 

Shawn S. Sullivan (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies (Paperback)

Tom Perotta has the gift of a great writer. Honesty and the ability to convey not his wishes of the world he/we grew up in but rather the stark reality of it all. We can laugh at it, we can cry about it, but "it" is all there. Comparisons are likely to both haunt and glorify Mr. Perotta - ie Roth, Salinger, Fitzgerald and even Springsteen but he writes in his own straight foward manner. He literally drives home a point in its wonderful and innocent simplicity and allows the reader to take it where he/she will. Tom Perotta is a wonderful writer and story teller we are lucky to have. READ his work. You will be happy you did.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are You a Child of the 70s...?, April 6, 2007

By 

Ken C. (MA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies (Paperback)

Yes, you'll enjoy BAD HAIRCUT in a big way if you grew up in that strange decade we call the 70s, but you can enjoy it for many other reasons as well. If you enjoy short stories, this collection with a common protagonist, the autobiographical Buddy, is sure to whet your appetite for that most concise of genres. If you are a Tom Perrotta fan, you'll be pleased and surprised, as this book offers both the Perrotta hero you've become accustomed to in his novels (young-ish, male, funny) AND it offers the author at his most disciplined as a stylist. The stories contain little "fat," in other words, and thematically tackle all the major sources of boyhood angst from grade school days to college.

The collection starts with "Weiner Man," the tale of Buddy in the cub scouts, a man dressed in an oversized weiner outfit, and his mother who knew Weiner Man from high school. Sweet and strange, it's the perfect gateway into this frank collection. It is followed by stories involving dating, fighting, family, school, drugs, and alcohol. Just your typical, red-blooded New Jersey suburban upbringing, is all. But what a ride.

I feel this book is overlooked for two reasons -- it's an "early" work by an author who later became famous and it's a short story collection, which will always play second fiddle to the novel. Don't let it scare you away, however. Although anyone can enjoy this work, it's almost a sure bet if you're a male boomer out of the 'burbs. So go ahead. Get a haircut. Even if it's bad, they always grow out...