According to the papers in the David Foster Wallace Archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin,[1] the book had an estimated gross sales of 28,000 hardcover copies during the first year of its publication.

"The 'hideous men' in Wallace's short stories are monstrous, parodic versions of Updikean characters, scrutinized with the eye of a pathologist ... Their sin is an implacable, and peculiarly American, strain of egoism.

Amy Hungerford, a professor of English at Yale University, most notably in her book Making Literature Now,[6] posed the same question for the collection and whether we can separate the art from the artist.

[7] In recent times, Wallace's work, and this collection in particular, has attracted the attention of scholars and academics, with some arguing that Brief Interviews with Hideous Men can be a source of study for possible explanation on the misogynistic traits and behavior of the male gender.

In a piece on Wallace's contribution to the short story, Power writes, "His second collection, for example, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1999), is a brilliant book that is very difficult to enjoy.

[20] In August 2012, British artists Andy Holden and David Raymond Conroy presented a stage adaptation of the book at the ICA, London,[21] which later toured to Arnolfini, Bristol.

[25][26] The book has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Czech, Finnish, Greek, German, Russian, Dutch, Serbian, French, Croatian and Hebrew.