The Blondes

A pandemic of a rabies-like virus is turning blonde women, both natural and bottled, into maniacal killers in this satirical novel from Schultz (Heaven Is Small). In New York City, an eager grad student from Toronto named Hazel Hayes becomes pregnant after a fling with her middle-aged married professor, Karl Mann. Now stuck in a remote Canadian cabin with Grace, Karl’s drunken, possibly deranged mind-game-playing wife, Hazel relates the fragmented stages of her “ugly affair” to the unborn child she initially wanted to terminate. Schultz spares no raunchy, noisome detail about the blonde rampages, the government’s ineptitude in handling the crisis, or Hazel’s maternal angst in this protracted meditation on women who think they’re the only ones who can save someone else’s husband. Not every reader will buy the solution—that women only matter when they’re dangerous. Like dry, brittle, over-peroxided hair, Hazel’s story might look attractive at a casual glance, but up close, those nasty dark roots destroy all the comfortable illusions.[em] Agent: Shaun Bradley, Transatlantic Agency. (Apr.) [/em]