Editor's note: Each month we see lots of books. This is one of the more curious arrivals.
It's two-tiered, it's bi-leveled, it's the hairstyle with an identity crisis (is it long or short?). We are, of course, referring to the mullet, the ultimate hair-don't that's short on the top and long in the back. We've always called it a ridla, short for riddle, as in What's short on top and long in back? and Why would anyone willingly wear their hair that way? Our personal favorite, however, is the shelby, which we learned from our cousin in Arkansas.
Whatever you call it, one thing's certain: it looks bad real bad. So bad, and so widespread, are mullets, that they are deserving of their own book, and that's just what Mark Larson and Barney Hoskyns bring us with The Mullet. Subtitled "Hairstyle of the Gods," this book is a hairography of sorts, a history of mullets in their many incarnations. Wrestlers, hockey players, misguided musicians, they, and maybe even someone you know, have them. Think Hulk Hogan, Jaromir Jagr think Billy Ray Cyrus, the country star the authors rightly deem king of the mullets. His carefully coifed Kentucky Waterfall is indeed a mullet that commands respect.
This is the book we've been waiting for; it's the ultimate tribute to mullet madness and that's the long and the short of it.
