Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 16 May 2018
Tom Wolfe, pioneering 'New Journalist,' dead at 88

By HILLEL ITALIE a national trendsetter. As
AP National Writer Wolfe helped define it, the
NEW YORK (AP) — Tom "new journalism" combined
Wolfe, the white-suited the emotional impact of a
wizard of "New Journalism" novel, the analysis of the
who exuberantly chron- best essays, and the fac-
icled American culture tual foundation of hard re-
from the Merry Pranksters porting. He mingled it all in
through the space race an over-the-top style that
before turning his satiric wit made life itself seem like
to such novels as "The Bon- one spectacular headline.
fire of the Vanities" and "A "She is gorgeous in the most
Man in Full," has died. He outrageous way," he wrote
was 88. in a typical piece, describ-
Wolfe's literary agent, Lynn ing actress-socialite Baby
Nesbit, told The Associated Jane Holzer.
Press that he died of an in- "Her hair rises up from her
fection Monday in a New head in a huge hairy co-
York City hospital. Further rona, a huge tan mane
details were not immedi- around a narrow face and
ately available. two eyes opened — swock!
An acolyte of French nov- — like umbrellas, with all
elist Emile Zola and other In this July 26, 2016 file photo, American author and journalist Tom Wolfe, Jr. appears in his living that hair flowing down over
authors of "realistic" fiction, room during an interview about his latest book, "The Kingdom of Speech," in New York. a coat made of ... zebra!
the stylishly-attired Wolfe Associated Press Those motherless stripes!"
was an American maverick Wolfe traveled during the
who insisted that the only ful fusillade of exclamation upstart, sneering at the the opinion of one's peers. '60s with Ken Kesey and
way to tell a great story points, italics and improb- perceived stuffiness of the Wolfe himself dressed for the Merry Pranksters for his
was to go out and report able words. An ingenious publishing establishment, company — his trademark book on the psychedelic
it. Along with Gay Talese, phrase maker, he branded and an old-school gentle- a pale three-piece suit, culture, "The Electric Kool-
Truman Capote and Nora such expressions as "radical man who went to the best impossibly high shirt collar, Aid Acid Test." One of his
Ephron, he helped demon- chic" for rich liberals' fasci- schools and when attend- two-tone shoes and a silk best-known magazine
strate that journalism could nation with revolutionaries; ing promotional luncheons tie. And he acknowledged pieces, "Radical Chic: That
offer the kinds of literary and the "Me" generation, with fellow authors would that he cared — very much Party at Lenny's," took a
pleasure found in books. defining the self-absorbed make a point of reading — about his reputation. pointed look at fund-raising
His hyperbolic, stylized babyboomers of the 1970s. their latest work. "My contention is that sta- for the Black Panther Party
writing work was a glee- Wolfe was both a literary He scorned the reluctance tus is on everybody's mind by Leonard Bernstein and
of American writers to all of the time, whether other wealthy whites. And
confront social issues and they're conscious of it or no one more memorably
warned that self-absorp- not," Wolfe, who lived in captured the beauty-and-
tion and master's programs a 12-room apartment on the-beast divide between
would kill the novel. He was Manhattan's Upper East the Beatles and the Rolling
astonished that no author Side, told the AP in 2012. Stones: "The Beatles want to
of his generation had writ- His literary honors included hold your hand," he wrote,
ten a sweeping, 19th cen- the American Book Award "but the Rolling Stones want
tury style novel about con- (now called the National to burn down your town!"
temporary New York City, Book Award) for "The Right Wolfe had many detrac-
and ended up writing one Stuff" and a nomination for tors — including fellow
himself, "The Bonfire of the the National Book Critics writers Norman Mailer and
Vanities." Circle prize for "The Bonfire John Updike and the critic
His work broke countless of the Vanities," one of the James Wood, who panned
rules but was grounded in top 10 selling books of the Wolfe's "big subjects, big
old-school journalism, in an 1980s. Its 1998 follow-up, "A people, and yards of flap-
obsessive attention to de- Man in Full," was another ping exaggeration. No one
tail that began with his first best-seller and a National of average size emerges
reporting job and endured Book Award nominee. from his shop; in fact, no
for decades. Wolfe satirized college mis- real human variety can
"Nothing fuels the imagina- behavior in "I Am Charlotte be found in his fiction, be-
tion more than real facts Simmons" and was still at cause everyone has the
do," Wolfe told the AP in it in his 80s with "Back to same enormous excitabil-
1999. "As the saying goes, Blood," a sprawling, mul- ity."
'You can't make this stuff ticultural story of sex and But his fans included mil-
up.'" honor set in Miami. lions of book-buyers, literary
Wolfe's interests were vast, Wolfe, the grandson of a critics and fellow authors.
but his narratives had a Confederate rifleman, be- "He knows everything," nov-
common theme. Whether gan his journalism career as elist Kurt Vonnegut once
sending up the New York art a reporter at the Springfield wrote of Wolfe. "... I wish he
world or hanging out with (Mass.) Union in 1957. But it had headed the Warren
acid heads, Wolfe inevi- wasn't until the mid-1960s, Commission.
tably presented man as a while a magazine writer We might then have
status-seeking animal, con- for New York and Esquire, caught a glimpse of our
cerned above all about that his work made him nation."q