Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe (born March 2, 1930, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.—died May 14, 2018, New York, New York) was an American novelist, journalist, and social commentator who was a leading critic of contemporary life and a proponent of New Journalism (the application of fiction-writing techniques to journalism).

After studying at Washington and Lee University (B.A., 1951), Wolfe, a talented baseball pitcher, tried out with the New York Giants but did not make the team. He then attended Yale University (Ph.D., 1957) and subsequently wrote for several newspapers, including the Springfield Union in Massachusetts and The Washington Post. In the early 1960s he moved to New York City and soon was contributing to various publications, notably the magazines New York, Esquire, and Harper’s. Around this time Wolfe adopted his trademark attire: a three-piece white suit and a high-collared silk shirt.

Wolfe’s first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1964), is a collection of essays satirizing American trends and celebrities of the 1960s. That work—especially the title piece about car customizers, which was reported to have been a lengthy memo to his editor at Esquire—helped give rise to New Journalism. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) became a classic of 1960s counterculture. It recounts the adventures of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who were known for using psychedelic drugs, especially LSD. Wolfe’s other nonfiction works included Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970), The Painted Word (1975), From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), and The Worship of Art: Notes on the New God (1984). The Right Stuff (1979; film 1983), which examines aspects of the first U.S. astronaut program, earned critical praise and was a best seller.

Motivated by a desire to revive social realism in literature—as he expressed in a much-discussed manifesto published in Harper’s in 1989—Wolfe turned to fiction. His first two novels were The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987; film 1990), a sprawling novel about urban greed and corruption, and A Man in Full (1998), a colorful panoramic depiction of contemporary Atlanta. Wolfe’s Hooking Up (2000) is a collection of fiction and essays, all previously published except for “My Three Stooges,” a scandalous diatribe about John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving, who had all been critical of A Man in Full.

Wolfe’s third novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), examines modern-day student life at fictional Dupont University through the eyes of small-town protagonist Charlotte Simmons. Back to Blood (2012) investigates (and pokes fun at) the complexities of race relations in Miami. Wolfe returned to nonfiction with The Kingdom of Speech (2016), in which he sharply criticized Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky as he argued that language was not a result of evolution.

In 2010 Wolfe was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. In 2023 his life and career were the subject of a well-received documentary film, Radical Wolfe.