The Blondes

February 16, 2015
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. Agent: Shaun Bradley, Transatlantic Agency.

February 15, 2015
A Canadian grad student, newly pregnant with her married professor's baby, must navigate a world altered by a pandemic in which blonde women attack the people around them in this smart new literary thriller from Schultz (Heaven Is Small, 2009, etc.). On her first day in New York City, Hazel Hayes discovers her unexpected pregnancy, dyes her hair orange and sees a businesswoman drag a young girl to her death on the subway tracks. At first, it seems like a random act of violence, but soon, the streets are filled with women and girls acting rabid, killing people and perishing themselves. The only thing connecting the infected? Their (natural, dyed, highlighted) blonde hair. Hazel is recounting these events-and her herculean struggle to get home to Toronto as the disease tears across the world-months later to her unborn child while holed up in a cabin with her professor's wife. The premise seems ludicrous-almost as if it's not meant to be taken very seriously-but that's intentional, and Schultz plays with this expectation. Before a violent attack at JFK, Hazel witnesses a group of flight attendants preparing to strike. She attempts to describe the scene and then stops. "You see, I'm not telling this right," she says. "It sounds comical, even to me. Part of the difficulty has to do with the fact that they were very beautiful women." This is the best kind of satire: The disease doesn't stand in cleanly for any single idea but rather an amalgamation of double standards, dismissals, expectations, abuses, and injustices large and small that any woman will recognize. What could be sexist cliches-the student/professor affair, the mistress and wife at each other's throats-are utterly recast, and nestled in the wry political commentary are moments of pure horror. A nail-biter that is equal parts suspense, science fiction, and a funny, dark sendup of the stranglehold of gender.

Starred review from March 15, 2015
Hazel Hayes, a struggling Canadian graduate student in New York City working haphazardly on a thesis about what women look like and what we think they look like, discovers that she's pregnant after a brief affair with a married professor back home. Already in shock, she then witnesses a horrifying outbreak of a bizarre deadly virus that transforms blondes, those icons of standardized beauty, into rabid, indiscriminate killers. Alarmed and flat broke, Hazel decides to return to Canada, but she encounters more Blonde Fury and ends up interned in a grim quarantine facility. Schultz sharply addresses a slew of social failings, from gender stereotypes and racial profiling to inane media frenzy, mass hysteria, and the tyranny of a declared state of emergency in this ferociously clever, exceedingly well written variation on the pandemic novel, which is now so prevalent that it's time, given the advent of climate fiction, or cli-fi, to coin vi-fi for virus fiction. The pandemic and its ripple effects make for a gripping, darkly bemusing read. But there's more. This canny, suspenseful, acidly observant satire cradles an intimate, poignant, and hilarious story of one lonely, stoic, young mother-to-be caught up in surreal and terrifying situations. Schultz gives readers a lot to think about in this rampaging yet sensitive tale about the true depths of womanhood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2014

With Margaret Atwood tweeting "Wow!" perhaps Trillium Book Award finalist Schultz (Heaven Is Small) will break out with this new title. In a strange new world, a rabies-like disease is sweeping the populace, compelling victims to attack and kill innocent bystanders. Bizarrely, the disease afflicts only blonde women. This sounds dystopian, but evidently it's very, very funny.

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