The Hair of Harold Roux: A NovelIn 1975 the National Book Award Fiction Prize was awarded to two writers: Robert Stone and Thomas Williams. Yet only Stone's Dog Soldiers is still remembered today. That oversight is startling when considering the literary impact of The Hair of Harold Roux. A dazzlingly crafted novel-within-a-novel hailed as a masterpiece, it deserves a new generation of readers. In The Hair of Harold Roux, we are introduced to Aaron Benham: college professor, writer, husband, and father. Aaron-when he can focus-is at work on a novel, The Hair of Harold Roux, a thinly disguised autobiographical account of his college days. In Aaron's novel, his alter ego, Allard Benson, courts a young woman, despite the efforts of his rival, the earnest and balding Harold Roux-a GI recently returned from World War II with an unfortunate hairpiece. What unfolds through Aaron's mind, his past and present, and his nested narratives is a fascinating exploration of sex and friendship, responsibility and regret, youth and middle age, and the essential fictions that see us through. "Everywhere the language flows from the purest vernacular to the elevations demanded by distilled perception. Our largest sympathies are roused, tormented and consoled."-Washington Post Book World "A wonderfully old-fashioned writer ... that dinosaur among contemporary writers of fiction, an actual storyteller."-John Irving |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - Dogberryjr - LibraryThingThere are books out there that serve to remind us how many books we haven't yet read, and this is one of them. Closing the book, I realized that I now had another author I would need to explore ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - LynnB - LibraryThingWhat a wonderful book! The author has used stories nested within stories to create a marvelous portrait of his protagonist: Aaron Benham is a university professor in the 1970s, writing about college ... Read full review
Contents
Section 1 | 3 |
Section 2 | 9 |
Section 3 | 29 |
Section 4 | 33 |
Section 5 | 44 |
Section 6 | 49 |
Section 7 | 71 |
Section 8 | 76 |
Section 17 | 167 |
Section 18 | 179 |
Section 19 | 223 |
Section 20 | 259 |
Section 21 | 273 |
Section 22 | 276 |
Section 23 | 277 |
Section 24 | 285 |
Section 9 | 91 |
Section 10 | 100 |
Section 11 | 101 |
Section 12 | 121 |
Section 13 | 129 |
Section 14 | 153 |
Section 15 | 154 |
Section 16 | 161 |
Section 25 | 295 |
Section 26 | 302 |
Section 27 | 314 |
Section 28 | 336 |
Section 29 | 359 |
Section 30 | 366 |
Section 31 | 373 |