“THE HAIR OF HAROLD ROUX his notebook says to him. But that is only a title. The rest of his creation fades back across a long plain into mist and darkness. He has always thought of a novel, before it has taken on its first, tentative structure, as a scene on this dark plain, the characters standing around a small fire which warmly etches the edges of their faces. Distant mountains are turning moon-cold and blue as the last light fades as if forever. It is that small fire he must constantly re-create or these last warm lives will cease to live, will never have lived even to fear the immensities of coldness and indifference around them.”

—Thomas Williams, The Hair of Harold Roux: A Novel, winner of the 1975 National Book Award Fiction Prize (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011), 10–11.