The Haircutter: A Novel

By Dana Thompson

“A wild story of love, obsession, and art . . . told with deft comedic confidence. It’s unforgettable!” —Eileen Curtright, author of The Burned Bridges of Ward, Nebraska
 
Born in the small town of Ten Sleep, Wyoming, The Haircutter—or H.C.—murders an enigmatic “Jenny” and flees to the glittering anonymity of New York City. Eight years later, after a series of odd jobs and lonely meals, H.C. is charged with driving a wolf from New York back to Wyoming, where it was captured for use in a conceptual art show. While back out West, he has a chance encounter with Carol, the girl he could never forget.
 
Now shacked up with H.C. in the city, Carol discovers H.C.’s eponymous secret—his compulsion to cut off locks of strangers’ hair in public and archive them on a hidden door in their apartment. Carol declares the bizarre habit to be high art, and sends the work to the eccentric gallerist Leslie Christmas, thrusting The Haircutter into the spotlight of NYC’s art scene . . .
 
“At turns hilarious and horrific, Thompson’s debut is thrillingly subversive . . . Told in prose so unexpected and surreal that it probably should be written in neon.” —Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer
 
“A vivid hillbilly romp through 21st-century New York . . . Touching, hallucinatory, and above all, irreverent.” —Albert Alla, author of Black Chalk
 
“At once hallucinatory and down-home, raunchy and high-concept, smothered in blood and full of giddy glee, Dana Thompson’s The Haircutter comes at you like a bolt from out of nowhere.” —Blake Butler, author of Ever

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781510725829

Dana Thompson

Dana Thompson enjoys storytelling through the visual mediums of illustration, animation, and graphic design. He has two grown children and lives with his wife in Greenville, South Carolina. He is the illustrator of The Serpent Slayer and the Scroll of Riddles.