Hot comb

"Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into Black women's lives and coming of age stories as seen across a crowded ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn. The titular story "Hot Comb" is about a young girl's first perm--a doomed ploy to look cool and to stop seeming "too white" in the all-black neighborhood her family has just moved to. In "Virgin Hair" taunts of "tender-headed" sting as much as the perm itself. It's a scenario that repeats fifteen years later as an adult when tired of the maintenance Flowers shaves her head only to be hurled new put-downs. Realizations about race class and the imperfections of identity swirl through Flowers' stories and ads which are by turns sweet insightful and heartbreaking."--