This book is experimental, constantly giving way to whimsy, yet retaining real heart. David Foster Wallace's success lies in his ability to be both a writer at the cutting edge of contemporary American literature and to provide fully fleshed characters the reader cares about.
Hideous Men is a collection of short stories, although they are not structured in a conventional way. The title story runs in four installments inter-cut throughout the book and comprising a series of monologues by various men, presented in the form of clinical interviews. Neither the interviewees nor their interrogators are identified, nor do we hear any of the questions.
With only the answers to the unheard questions to go by, the hideousness of the men emerges as they discuss their sexual exploits and fantasies. The men are all different - we hear the voices of psychopaths, the self-proclaimed great seducers and the middle-class and married - but they are linked by their desire to boast of their sexual prowess and justify their indulgences. It makes for disturbing reading, but Wallace, it seems, never intended to put us at ease.
The remainder of the book is equally disturbing, if not in its subject matter then in the obscurity of its form. The closest he comes to the conventional short story is in Adult World, the tale of a young married couple and the unspoken undercurrents of their lovemaking. Half-way through the story, Wallace pulls out of the short story form and we are presented with what appears to be his notes: '2d. (still gone 100% pale a la Dostoevesky's Natasha F.) abruptly acquiesces w/r/t adulterous Holiday Inn interlude.' As a commentator on contemporary America, Wallace heads the league. It could be argued that his short discussion of neuroses in The Depressed Person - with tongue planted firmly in cheek as he banters about 'painful childhoods' and the 'blame game' - manages a more insightful account of the young and depressed in America than Elizabeth Wurtzel achieved in well over 300 pages in Prozac Nation.
The freedom of form Wallace allows himself makes for exciting and multi-layered reading - there are lengthy footnotes within footnotes - the only danger that his determination to break radically from convention can feel forced. Despite the fluidity of his discourse, Wallace never seems to fully let go. He may rant but he is always painfully aware of what he is doing, and at pains to make the reader aware of it too.
The structure of Hideous Men - in bite-size pieces - allows for an appreciation of Wallace's playful intrigue with form and prevents literary indigestion.