Editing Tom Wolfe

{{Short description|American author and journalist (1930–2018)}}
{{About|the late 20th- and early 21st-century writer|the early 20th-century writer|Thomas Wolfe||Thomas Wolf (disambiguation){{!}}Thomas Wolf}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox writer
| birth_name   = Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr.
| image        = TomWolfe02 (cropped).jpg
| caption      = Wolfe in 1988
| birth_date   = {{birth date|1930|3|2}}
| death_date   = {{death date and age|2018|05|14|1930|3|2}}
| birth_place  = [[Richmond, Virginia]], U.S.
| death_place  = [[New York City]], U.S.
| occupation   = {{flatlist|
* Journalist
* author
}}
| spouse       = {{marriage|Sheila Berger|27 May 1978}}<ref>{{Cite news|date=1978-05-28|title=Tom Wolfe, Author, Weds Sheila Berger|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/28/archives/tom-wolfe-author-weds-sheila-berger.html|access-date=2021-05-19|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
| children     = 2
| education    = {{unbulleted list|[[Washington and Lee University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])|[[Yale University]] ([[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
}}
| period       = 1959–2016
| movement     = [[New Journalism]]
| notableworks     = {{unbulleted list|''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (1968)|''[[The Right Stuff (book)|The Right Stuff]]'' (1979)|''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities]]'' (1987)}}
}}
'''Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr.''' (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)<ref group="lower-alpha">Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See {{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/obituaries/tom-wolfe-pyrotechnic-nonfiction-writer-and-novelist-dies-at-88.html|title=Tom Wolfe, 88, 'New Journalist' With Electric Style and Acid Pen, Dies|date=May 15, 2018|work=The New York Times}} and {{cite news|url=https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-people-tom-wolfe/right-stuff-bonfire-author-tom-wolfe-dead-at-87-agent-says-idUKKCN1IG2DV|title='Bonfire of the Vanities' author Tom Wolfe dead at 88|last1=Trott|first1=Bill|publisher=Reuters}}</ref> was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with [[New Journalism]], a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work is satirical and centers on the [[counterculture of the 1960s]] and issues related to [[Social class|class]], [[social status]], and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of [[New York City]].

Wolfe began his career as a regional newspaper reporter in the 1950s, achieving national prominence in the 1960s following the publication of such best-selling books as ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (an account of [[Ken Kesey]] and the [[Merry Pranksters]]) and two collections of articles and essays, ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'' and ''[[Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers]]''. In 1979, he published the influential book ''[[The Right Stuff (book)|The Right Stuff]]'' about the [[Mercury Seven]] astronauts, which was made into a 1983 [[The Right Stuff (film)|film of the same name]] directed by [[Philip Kaufman]].

His first novel, ''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities]]'', published in 1987, was met with critical acclaim and also became a commercial success. Its adaptation as a [[The Bonfire of the Vanities (film)|motion picture]] of the same name, directed by [[Brian De Palma]], was a critical and commercial failure.

==Early life and education==
Wolfe was born on March 2, 1930, in [[Richmond, Virginia]], the son of Helen Perkins Hughes Wolfe, a garden designer, and Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Sr. (1893–1972), an [[Agronomy|agronomist]] and editor of ''The Southern Planter''.<ref name=TimesObit>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/obituaries/tom-wolfe-pyrotechnic-nonfiction-writer-and-novelist-dies-at-88.html|title=Tom Wolfe, Author of 'The Right Stuff' and 'Bonfire of the Vanities,' Dies|last1=Carmody|first1=Deirdre|last2=Grimes|first2=William|date=May 15, 2018|website=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=May 15, 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7N9oAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Thomas+Kennerly+Wolfe%22+richmond|title=The Gang that Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution|first=Marc|last=Weingarten|date=January 1, 2006|publisher=Crown Publishers|isbn=9781400049141|via=Google Books}}</ref>

He grew up on Gloucester Road in the Richmond North Side neighborhood of [[Sherwood Park (Richmond, Virginia)|Sherwood Park]]. He recounted childhood memories in a foreword to a book{{which|date=January 2024}} about the nearby historic Ginter Park neighborhood. He was student council president, editor of the school newspaper, and a star baseball player at [[St. Christopher's School (Richmond, Virginia)|St. Christopher's School]], an [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] all-boys school in Richmond.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.richmond.com/news/obituary/tom-wolfe-dapper-dean-of-new-journalism-who-never-forgot/article_2e14db30-d940-5073-8a47-c56a88ba5926.html |title=Tom Wolfe, dapper dean of 'new journalism' who never forgot his Richmond roots, dies at 88 |newspaper=Richmond Times-Despatch |date=May 16, 2018 |access-date=May 17, 2018 }}</ref>  In 1991, he wrote another touching remembrance of his childhood in Sherwood Park in a letter to a man who purchased the Wolfe home place.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/tom-wolfes-sweet-memories-of-his-childhood-home-will-make-you-cry/ |title=Tom Wolfe's Sweet Memories of His Childhood Home Will Make You Cry|last1=Griffith|first1=Carson|date=May 17, 2018 |website=www.architecturaldigest.com |access-date=July 5, 2022}}</ref>

Upon graduating in 1947, he turned down an offer to enroll at [[Princeton University]] to attend [[Washington and Lee University]].<ref>{{cite news |work=ABC news |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/renowned-author-tom-wolfe-dies-88/story?id=55177168 |access-date=May 17, 2018 |title=Renowned author Tom Wolfe dies at 88 }}</ref> At Washington and Lee, Wolfe was a member of the [[Phi Kappa Sigma]] fraternity. He majored in English, was sports editor of the college newspaper, and helped found a literary magazine, ''Shenandoah,'' giving him opportunities to practice his writing both inside and outside the classroom. Of particular influence was his professor [[Marshall Fishwick]], a teacher of American studies educated at [[University of Virginia|UVA]] and [[Yale University|Yale]]. More in the tradition of anthropology than literary scholarship, Fishwick taught his students to look at the whole of a culture, including those elements considered profane. Wolfe's undergraduate thesis, entitled "A Zoo Full of Zebras: Anti-Intellectualism in America," evinced his fondness for words and aspirations toward cultural criticism. Wolfe graduated ''[[Latin honors#Types|cum laude]]'' in 1951.

While still in college, Wolfe continued playing baseball as a pitcher and began to play semi-professionally. In 1952, he earned a tryout with the [[History of the New York Giants (baseball)|New York Giants]], but was cut after three days,<ref name=TimesObit/> which he blamed on his inability to throw good fastballs. Wolfe abandoned baseball and instead followed his professor Fishwick's example, enrolling in [[Yale University]]'s [[American studies]] doctoral program. His Ph.D. thesis was titled ''The League of American Writers: Communist Organizational Activity Among American Writers, 1929–1942.''<ref name="Wolfe-1956">{{cite book |last1=Wolfe |first1=Thomas Kennerly Jr. |title=The League of American Writers: Communist Organizational Activity Among American Writers, 1929–1942 |date=1956 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/4958f4792d94b8c05b293b55f23735f0/1 |via=ProQuest |language=en}}</ref><!-- <ref>Available on microform from the Yale University Libraries, [http://orbis.library.yale.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search%5FArg=Wolfe%20Thomas%20Kennerly&Search%5FCode=NAME%5F&CNT=50&PID=qdDw89mqbpVPbrSDSeEdi6ynqhFT&BROWSE=2&HC=1&SID=1 Link to Entry]{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> --> In the course of his research, Wolfe interviewed [[Malcolm Cowley]], [[Archibald MacLeish]], and [[James T. Farrell]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=6–10}}</ref> A biographer remarked on the thesis: "Reading it, one sees what has been the most baleful influence of graduate education on many who have suffered through it: It deadens all sense of style."<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=9}}</ref> Originally rejected, his thesis was finally accepted after he rewrote it in an objective rather than a subjective style. Upon leaving Yale, he wrote a friend, explaining through expletives his personal opinions about his thesis.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://americandigest.org/tom-wolfe-a-man-in-full/| title = Tom Wolfe: A Man in Full}}</ref>

==Journalism and New Journalism==
Though Wolfe was offered teaching jobs in academia, he opted to work as a reporter. In 1956, while still preparing his thesis, Wolfe became a reporter for the ''[[The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts)|Springfield Union]]'' in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]]. Wolfe finished his thesis in 1957.

In 1959, he was hired by ''[[The Washington Post]]''. Wolfe has said that part of the reason he was hired by the ''Post'' was his lack of interest in politics. The Post's city editor was "amazed that Wolfe preferred cityside to [[Capitol Hill]], the beat every reporter wanted." He won an award from [[NewsGuild-CWA|The Newspaper Guild]] for foreign reporting in [[Cuba]] in 1961 and also won the Guild's award for humor. While there, Wolfe experimented with fiction-writing techniques in feature stories.<ref name="Wolfe's Post">{{cite news |url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063001308.html |title = Tom Wolfe's Washington Post |newspaper=The Washington Post |date = July 2, 2006 |access-date = March 9, 2007 | first=James | last=Rosen}}</ref>

In 1962, Wolfe left Washington D.C. for New York City, taking a position with the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' as a general assignment reporter and feature writer. The editors of the ''Herald Tribune'', including [[Clay Felker]] of the Sunday section supplement ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'' magazine, encouraged their writers to break the conventions of newspaper writing.<ref name="la times">{{cite news |first= Dennis|last= Mclellan|title=Clay Felker, 82; editor of New York magazine led New Journalism charge  |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jul-02-me-felker2-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |date=July 2, 2008 |access-date=November 23, 2008 }}</ref> Wolfe attracted attention in 1963 when, three months before the [[JFK assassination]], he published an article on [[George Ohsawa]] and the [[sanpaku]] condition foretelling death.<ref>Tom Wolfe (August 18, 1963) "Kennedy to Bardot, Too Much Sanpaku", ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]''</ref>

During the [[1962–63 New York City newspaper strike]], Wolfe approached ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'' magazine about an article on the [[hot rod]] and [[custom car]] culture of [[southern California]]. He struggled with the article until his editor, [[Byron Dobell]], suggested that Wolfe send him his notes so they could piece the story together. Wolfe procrastinated. The evening before the deadline, he typed a letter to Dobell explaining what he wanted to say on the subject, ignoring all journalistic conventions. Dobell's response was to remove the salutation "Dear Byron" from the top of the letter and publish it intact as reportage. The result, published in 1963, was "There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." The article was widely discussed—loved by some, hated by others. Its notoriety helped Wolfe gain publication of his first book, ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'', a collection of his writings from the ''Herald-Tribune'', ''Esquire'', and other publications.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=11–12}}</ref>

This was what Wolfe called [[New Journalism]], in which some journalists and essayists experimented with a variety of [[List of narrative techniques|literary techniques]], mixing them with the traditional ideal of dispassionate, even-handed reporting. Wolfe experimented with four literary devices not normally associated with feature writing: scene-by-scene construction, extensive dialogue, multiple points of view, and detailed description of individuals' status-life symbols (the material choices people make) in writing this stylized form of journalism. He later referred to this style as literary journalism.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wolfe|first=Tom|title=The New Journalism|year=1973|publisher=Harper & Row, Publishers|location=New York|isbn=0-06-014707-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newjournalism00wolf/page/31 31–33]|author2=E. W. Johnson|url=https://archive.org/details/newjournalism00wolf/page/31}}</ref> Of the use of status symbols, Wolfe has said, "I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://contemporarythinkers.org/tom-wolfe/|title=A Guide to the Work of Tom Wolfe|website=contemporarythinkers.org}}</ref>

Wolfe also championed what he called "saturation reporting," a reportorial approach in which the journalist "shadows" and observes the subject over an extended period of time. "To pull it off," says Wolfe, "you casually have to stay with the people you are writing about for long stretches&nbsp;... long enough so that you are actually there when revealing scenes take place in their lives."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wolfe|first=Tom|title=The New Journalism|journal=Bulletin of American Society of Newspapers|date=September 1970|page=22}}</ref> Saturation reporting differs from "in-depth" and "investigative" reporting, which involve the direct interviewing of numerous sources and/or the extensive analyzing of external documents relating to the story. Saturation reporting, according to communication professor Richard Kallan, "entails a more complex set of relationships wherein the journalist becomes an involved, more fully reactive witness, no longer distanced and detached from the people and events reported."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kallan|first=Richard A.|title=Tom Wolfe|journal=A Sourcebook of American Literary Journalism: Representative Writers in an Emerging Genre|year=1992|page=252|editor1-first=Thomas B.|editor1-last=Connery|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=New York}}</ref>

Wolfe's ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' is considered a striking example of New Journalism. This account of the [[Merry Pranksters]], a famous sixties counter-culture group, was highly experimental in Wolfe's use of [[onomatopoeia]], [[Free association (psychology)|free association]], and eccentric punctuation—such as multiple exclamation marks and italics—to convey the manic ideas and personalities of [[Ken Kesey]] and his followers.

In addition to his own work, Wolfe edited a collection of New Journalism with E.&nbsp;W. Johnson, published in 1973 and titled ''[[The New Journalism]]''. This book published pieces by [[Truman Capote]], [[Hunter S. Thompson]], [[Norman Mailer]], [[Gay Talese]], [[Joan Didion]], and several other well-known writers, with the common theme of journalism that incorporated literary techniques and which could be considered literature.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=19–22}}</ref>

==Non-fiction books==
In 1965, Wolfe published a collection of his articles in this style, ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'', adding to his notability. He published a second collection of articles, ''[[The Pump House Gang]]'', in 1968. Wolfe wrote on popular culture, architecture, politics, and other topics that underscored, among other things, how American life in the 1960s had been transformed by post-WWII economic prosperity. His defining work from this era is ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (published the same day as ''The Pump House Gang'' in 1968), which for many epitomized the 1960s. Although a conservative in many ways (in 2008, he claimed never to have used [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] and to have tried [[Cannabis (drug)|marijuana]] only once<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1837219,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080901211827/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1837219,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=September 1, 2008 | magazine=Time | title=10 Questions for Tom Wolfe | date=August 28, 2008 | access-date=May 25, 2010}}</ref>), Wolfe became one of the notable figures of the decade.

In 1970, he published two essays in book form as ''[[Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers]]''. "Radical Chic" was a biting account of a party given by composer and conductor [[Leonard Bernstein]] to raise money for the [[Black Panther Party]]. "Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers" was about the practice by some African Americans of using racial intimidation ("mau-mauing") to extract funds from government welfare bureaucrats ("flak catchers"). Wolfe's phrase, "[[radical chic]]", soon became a popular derogatory term for critics to apply to upper-class [[leftism]]. His ''[[Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine]]'' (1977) included Wolfe's noted essay, ''[[The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening]]''.

[[File:Original 7 Astronauts in Spacesuits - GPN-2000-001293.jpg|thumb|right|upright|The [[Mercury Seven]] astronauts were the subject of ''[[The Right Stuff (book)|The Right Stuff]]''.]]
In 1979, Wolfe published ''[[The Right Stuff (book)|The Right Stuff]]'', an account of the pilots who became America's first [[astronaut]]s. Following their training and unofficial, even foolhardy, exploits, he likened these heroes to "[[single combat]] warriors" of a bygone era, going forth to battle in the [[Space Race]] on behalf of their country. In 1983, the book was adapted into an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-winning [[The Right Stuff (film)|feature film]].

Wolfe also wrote two critiques of and social histories of [[modern art]] and [[modern architecture]], ''[[The Painted Word]]'' and ''[[From Bauhaus to Our House]]'', published in 1975 and 1981, respectively. ''The Painted Word'' mocked the excessive insularity of the art world and its dependence on what he saw as faddish critical theory. In ''From Bauhaus to Our House'' he explored what he said were the negative effects of the [[Bauhaus]] style on the evolution of modern architecture.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=22–29}}</ref>

In 2016, Wolfe published ''[[The Kingdom of Speech]]'', a critique of the work of [[Charles Darwin]] and [[Noam Chomsky]]. Wolfe synthesized what he construed as the views of [[Alfred Russel Wallace]] and Chomsky on the language organ as not being a product of natural selection to suggest that speech is an invention that is responsible for establishing our humanity. Some critics claimed that Wolfe's view on how humans developed speech were not supported by research and were opinionated.<ref>{{cite news |last=Coyne |first=Jerry |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/his-white-suit-unsullied-by-research-tom-wolfe-tries-to-take-down-charles-darwin/2016/08/31/8ee6d4ee-4936-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html |title=His white suit unsullied by research, Tom Wolfe tries to take down Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=August 31, 2016 |access-date=September 1, 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Sullivan |first=James |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2016/08/24/tom-wolfe-traces-debunking-darwin-ideas-how-humans-developed-speech/XYH7pZDoEAgYFkYd1nTtrI/story.html |title=Tom Wolfe traces the often-amusing history of bickering over how humans started talking |work=[[The Boston Globe]] |date=August 25, 2016 |access-date=August 26, 2016 }}</ref>

== Made-for-TV movie ==
In 1977, [[PBS]] produced ''Tom Wolfe's Los Angeles'', a fictional, satirical [[Television film|TV movie]] set in Los Angeles. Wolfe appears in the movie as himself.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=757&dat=19770125&id=4XRSAAAAIBAJ&pg=5752,2578600&hl=en| title= Tom Wolfe's Satirical Look at Los Angeles| work= The Daily News of the Virgin Islands| publisher= Daily News Publishing Co., Inc. | page= 18| date= January 25, 1977| access-date= October 20, 2017| via= Google News Archive}}</ref>

==Novels==
Throughout his early career, Wolfe had planned to write a novel to capture the wide reach of American society. Among his models was [[William Makepeace Thackeray]]'s ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]'', which described the society of 19th-century England. In 1981, he ceased his other work to concentrate on the novel.

Wolfe began researching the novel by observing cases at the Manhattan Criminal Court and shadowing members of the homicide squad in [[The Bronx]]. While the research came easily, he encountered difficulty in writing. To overcome his writer's block, Wolfe wrote to [[Jann Wenner]], editor of ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', to propose an idea drawn from [[Charles Dickens]] and Thackeray: to serialize his novel. Wenner offered Wolfe around $200,000 to serialize his work.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen | 2002 |pp= 31}}</ref> The frequent deadline pressure gave him the motivation he had sought, and from July 1984 to August 1985, he published a new installment in each biweekly issue of ''Rolling Stone''.

Later Wolfe was unhappy with his "very public first draft"<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=32}}</ref> and thoroughly revised his work, even changing his protagonist, Sherman McCoy. Wolfe had originally made him a writer, but recast him as a bond salesman. Wolfe researched and revised for two years, and his ''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities]]'' was published in 1987. The book was a commercial and critical success, spending weeks on bestseller lists and earning praise from the very literary establishment on which Wolfe had long heaped scorn.<ref>{{Harvnb |Ragen|2002|pp=30–34}}</ref>

Because of the success of Wolfe's first novel, there was widespread interest in his second. This novel took him more than 11 years to complete; ''[[A Man in Full]]'' was published in 1998. The book's reception was not universally favorable, though it received glowing reviews in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]'', ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', and elsewhere. An initial printing of 1.2 million copies was announced and the book stayed at number one on ''The New York Times''{{'}} bestseller list for ten weeks. Noted author [[John Updike]] wrote a critical review for ''The New Yorker'', complaining that the novel "amounts to entertainment, not literature, even literature in a modest aspirant form."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Updike |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ov6OEEkZ5aMC |title=More Matter: Essays and Criticism |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |year=2009 |page=324 |isbn=978-0307488398 |access-date=May 15, 2018 }}</ref> His comments sparked an intense war of words in the print and broadcast media among Wolfe and Updike, and authors [[John Irving]] and [[Norman Mailer]], who also entered the fray.<ref>{{cite book|title=Literary feuds: a century of celebrated quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe|last=Arthur|first= Anthony|date=2002|publisher=MJF Books|isbn=1-56731-681-6|location=New York|oclc=60705284| pages=200–202}}</ref> The novel was selected to be adapted into a television series by [[Netflix]] in 2021.<ref>{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Peter |title=Regina King & David E. Kelley Book Series Order For Adaptation Of Tom Wolfe's 'A Man In Full' |url=https://deadline.com/2021/11/regina-king-david-e-kelley-book-series-order-for-adaptation-of-tom-wolfes-a-man-in-full-1234868203/ |website=Deadline |date=4 November 2021}}</ref>

In 2001, Wolfe published an essay referring to his three main literary critics as "My Three Stooges."<ref>{{cite news |last=Shulevitz |first=Judith |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/17/bookend/bookend.html |title=The Best Revenge |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 17, 2001 |access-date=May 15, 2018 }}</ref> That year he also published ''[[Hooking Up]]'' (a collection of short pieces, including the 1997 novella ''Ambush at Fort Bragg'').

He published his third novel, ''[[I Am Charlotte Simmons]]'' (2004), chronicling the decline of a poor, bright scholarship student from Alleghany County, North Carolina, after attending an elite university. He conveys an institution filled with snobbery, materialism, anti-intellectualism, and sexual promiscuity. The novel met with a mostly tepid response by critics. Many social conservatives praised it in the belief that its portrayal revealed widespread moral decline. The novel won a [[Literary Review#Bad Sex in Fiction Award|Bad Sex in Fiction Award]] from the London-based ''[[Literary Review]]'', a prize established "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel".<ref>{{cite news |last=Rhind-Tutt |first=Louise |url=https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/25-years-bad-sex-awards/ |title=Celebrating 25 years of the worst sex scenes in literary history |work=The i Paper |date=November 27, 2017 |access-date=May 15, 2018 }}</ref> Wolfe later explained that such sexual references were deliberately clinical.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}

Wolfe wrote that his goal in writing fiction was to document contemporary society in the tradition of [[Charles Dickens]], [[Émile Zola]], and [[John Steinbeck]].

Wolfe announced in early 2008 that he was leaving his longtime publisher, [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]. His fourth novel, ''[[Back to Blood]]'', was published in October 2012 by [[Little, Brown and Company]]. According to ''[[The New York Times]]'', Wolfe was paid close to US$7 million for the book.<ref name=Motoko08>Rich, Motoko. "[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/books/03wolfe.html Tom Wolfe Leaves Longtime Publisher, Taking His New Book]", ''[[The New York Times]]'', January 3, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2008.</ref> According to the publisher, ''Back to Blood'' is about "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption and ambition in Miami, the city where America's future has arrived first."<ref name = Trachtenberg08>Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. "[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119932268159163799 Tom Wolfe Changes Scenery; Iconic Author Seeks Lift With New Publisher, Miami-Centered Drama]", ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', January 3, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2008.</ref> The book was released to mixed reviews. ''Back to Blood'' was an even bigger commercial failure than ''I Am Charlotte Simmons''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Tom Wolfe's "Back to Blood" Cost $112 Per Reader|url=http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/tom-wolfes-back-to-blood-cost-112-per-reader|publisher=The Awl|access-date=May 14, 2013}}</ref>

==Critical reception==
[[Kurt Vonnegut]] said Wolfe is "the most exciting—or, at least, the most jangling—journalist to appear in some time," and "a genius who will do anything to get attention."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/08/specials/wolfe-kandy.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|title=Infarcted! Tabescent!|author=Vonnegut, Kurt|date=June 27, 1965}}</ref> [[Paul Fussell]] called Wolfe a splendid writer and stated "Reading him is exhilarating not because he makes us hopeful of the human future but because he makes us share the enthusiasm with which he perceives the actual."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/08/specials/wolfe-purple.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|title=The Best Right Stuff|author=Fussell, Paul|date=October 10, 1982}}</ref> Critic [[Dwight Garner (critic)|Dwight Garner]] praised Wolfe as "a brilliantly gifted social observer and satirist" who "made a fetish of close and often comically slashing detail" and was "unafraid of kicking up at the pretensions of the literary establishment."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/books/tom-wolfe-appraisal.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|title=Tom Wolfe Kept a Close, Comical and Astonished Eye on America|author=Garner, Dwight|date=May 15, 2018}}</ref> [[Harold Bloom]] described Wolfe as "a fierce storyteller, and a vastly adequate social satirist".<ref name="Bloom2009">{{cite book|author=Harold Bloom|title=Tom Wolfe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uOhsxOeev7wC|year=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1351-7|page=1}}</ref> Novelist [[Louis Auchincloss]] praised Wolfe, describing ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' as "a marvelous book".<ref>{{cite news|last=Carrier|first=David|title=Louis Auchincloss by David Carrier|url=https://bombmagazine.org/articles/louis-auchincloss/|work=Bomb Magazine|date=1 October 1997}}</ref>

Critic [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] disparaged Wolfe's "big subjects, big people, and yards of flapping exaggeration. No one of average size emerges from his shop; in fact, no real human variety can be found in his fiction, because everyone has the same enormous excitability."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2018/05/15/tom-wolfe-chronicler-and-satirist-american-culture-dies/XpVmk14wTzyYHosPXtVIeK/story.html|work=[[The Boston Globe]]|title=Tom Wolfe, pioneering 'New Journalist,' dies at 88|author=Italie, Hillel|date=May 15, 2018|access-date=May 15, 2018|archive-date=May 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180515225755/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2018/05/15/tom-wolfe-chronicler-and-satirist-american-culture-dies/XpVmk14wTzyYHosPXtVIeK/story.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 2000, Wolfe was criticised by [[Norman Mailer]], [[John Updike]] and [[John Irving]], after they were asked if they believed that his books were deserving of their critical acclaim. Mailer compared reading a Wolfe novel to having sex with a 300 lb woman, saying, "Once she gets to the top it's all over. Fall in love or be asphyxiated." Updike was more literary in his reservedness: He claimed that ''A Man in Full'' "amounts to entertainment, not literature, even literature in a modest aspirant form." Irving was perhaps the most dismissive, saying "It's like reading a bad newspaper or a bad piece in a magazine{{nbsp}}... read sentences and watch yourself gag." Wolfe responded, saying, "It's a tantrum. It's a wonderful tantrum. ''[[A Man in Full]]'' panicked Irving the same way it panicked Updike and Norman. Frightened them. Panicked them." He later called Updike and Mailer "two old piles of bones" and said again that Irving was frightened by the quality of his work. Later that year he published an essay titled ''My Three Stooges'' about the critics.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/feb/10/fiction.artsfeatures|title=A feud in full: John Updike, Norman Mailer and John Irving v Tom Wolfe|first=Julian|last=Borger|date=February 10, 2000|website=the Guardian}}</ref>

==Recurring themes==
Wolfe's writing throughout his career showed an interest in [[social status]] competition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/where-tom-wolfe-got-his-status-obsession/|title=Where Tom Wolfe Got His Status Obsession|website=Nieman Storyboard|date=July 5, 2016}}</ref>

Much of Wolfe's later work addresses [[neuroscience]]. He notes his fascination in "Sorry, Your Soul Just Died", one of the essays in ''Hooking Up''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anton |first1=Michael |title=Lone Wolfe |journal=Claremont Review of Books |date=Winter 2001 |volume=1 |issue=2 |url=https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/lone-wolfe/ |access-date=July 12, 2022}}</ref> This topic is also featured in ''I Am Charlotte Simmons'', as the title character is a student of neuroscience. Wolfe describes the characters' thought and emotional processes, such as fear, humiliation and lust, in the clinical terminology of brain chemistry. Wolfe also frequently gives detailed descriptions of various aspects of his characters' anatomies.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/15/muscle-bound|title=Muscle-Bound|magazine=The New Yorker|date=October 15, 2012}}</ref>

==White suit==
Wolfe adopted wearing a white suit as a trademark in 1962. He bought his first white suit, planning to wear it in the summer, in the style of [[Culture of the Southern United States|Southern gentlemen]]. He found that the suit he had bought was too heavy for summer use, so he wore it in winter, which created a sensation. At the time, white suits were supposed to be reserved for summer wear.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ragen|2002|pp=12}}</ref> Wolfe maintained this as a trademark. He sometimes accompanied it with a white tie, white [[homburg hat]], and two-tone [[spectator shoes]]. Wolfe said that the outfit disarmed the people he observed, making him, in their eyes, "a man from Mars, the man who didn't know anything and was eager to know."<ref>{{cite news| url= https://www.smh.com.au/news/Books/In-Wolfes-clothing/2004/12/17/1102787266352.html |title= In Wolfe's clothing| first= John | last= Freeman| work= [[The Sydney Morning Herald]]| date= December 18, 2004 }}</ref>

==Views==
[[File:Wolfe at White House.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Wolfe at the [[White House]], 2004]]
In 1989, Wolfe wrote an essay for ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', titled "[[Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast]]". It criticized modern American novelists for failing to engage fully with their subjects, and suggested that modern literature could be saved by a greater reliance on journalistic technique.<ref>Wolfe, Tom (November 1989), [http://www.lukeford.net/Images/photos3/tomwolfe.pdf "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast"], ''[[Harper's Magazine]]''</ref>

Asked to comment by ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' on blogs in 2007 to mark the tenth anniversary of their advent, Wolfe wrote that "the universe of blogs is a universe of rumors" and that "blogs are an advance guard to the rear."<ref name="blogs" /> He also took the opportunity to criticize Wikipedia, saying that "only a primitive would believe a word of" it. He noted a story about him in his Wikipedia bio article at the time which he said had never happened.<ref name="blogs">Varadarajan, Tunku (July 14, 2007), [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118436667045766268 "Happy Blogiversary"], ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''</ref>

===Politics===
Wolfe's views and choice of subject material, such as mocking left-wing intellectuals in ''Radical Chic'', glorifying astronauts in ''The Right Stuff'', and critiquing [[Noam Chomsky]] in ''[[The Kingdom of Speech]]'' sometimes resulted in his being labeled [[conservatism|conservative]].<ref name="Elite"/> Wolfe has been labeled a conservative by ''[[The New Yorker]]'',<ref>{{cite news|last=Gopnik|first=Adam|title=Remembering Tom Wolfe, One of the Central Makers of Modern American Prose|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/remembering-tom-wolfe-one-of-the-central-makers-of-modern-american-prose|work=New Yorker|date=15 May 2018}}</ref> ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'',<ref name="Vanity">{{cite magazine|last=Kamp|first=David|title=Tom Wolfe in Full|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1998/09/tom-wolfe-in-full|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=16 May 2018}}</ref> ''[[The Washington Post]]'',<ref>{{cite news|last=Nardini|first=Nicholas|title=How Tom Wolfe's 'I Am Charlotte Simmons' sounded the death knell for New Journalism|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/how-tom-wolfes-i-am-charlotte-simmons-sounded-the-death-knell-for-new-journalism/2019/05/02/0fe05826-6b4a-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html|newspaper=Washington Post|date=2 May 2019}}</ref> ''[[National Review]]'',<ref>{{cite news|title=Tom Wolfe, Gentleman Heretic|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/remembering-tom-wolfe-conservative-chronicler/|work=National Review|date=16 May 2018}}</ref> and ''[[USA Today]]''.<ref>{{cite news|last=Schneider|first=Christian |title=Less Roseanne Barr, more Tom Wolfe — Republicans need new celebrities|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/30/roseanne-barr-racist-tweet-tom-wolfe-republican-celebrity-column/656274002/|work=USA Today|date=20 May 2018}}</ref> Editor [[Byron Dobell]] labelled Wolfe a [[reactionary]];<ref name="Vanity"/> while a member of the [[Black Panther Party]] called him a racist, due to his portrayal of the party in ''Radical Chic''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904627-2,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090123232028/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904627-2,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 23, 2009|title=Books: Fish in the Brandy Snifter|first=Timothy|last=Foote|date=December 21, 1970|via=www.time.com}}</ref>

Wolfe rejected such labels, saying, "If I have been judged to be [[right-wing politics|right wing]], I think this is because of the things I have mocked."<ref name="Elite"/> Wolfe opposed the American [[two-party system#United States|two-party system]].<ref name="Trump"/> In an October 2012 interview with ''New York'' magazine, he stated that he had "voted for every [presidential election] winner since I’ve been old enough to vote", with the exception of [[Bill Clinton]] in the [[1992 United States presidential election|1992 election]]. Later in the interview, Wolfe said: "Our federal government is like a train on the track... There are people on the right and people on the left, they’re yelling at it. The train has no choice; it’s on its track! Everyone gets forced to the center, which is fine with me... I read all these things about the country fading, but if you really think about it, we’re still giants!"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kachka |first1=Boris |title=Tom Wolfe on His New Novel Back to Blood and His Fascination With the Down-and-Dirty Pecking Order |url=https://www.vulture.com/2012/10/tom-wolfes-new-novel-back-to-blood.html |website=Vulture |language=en |date=21 October 2012}}</ref>

Wolfe supported [[George W. Bush]] as a political candidate and said he voted for him for president in [[2004 United States presidential election|2004]] because of what he called Bush's "great decisiveness and willingness to fight".<ref name="Elite">{{cite news|last=Vulliamy|first=Ed |title='The liberal elite hasn't got a clue' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/01/uselections2004.books |access-date=19 October 2022 |work=[[the Guardian]] |date=1 November 2004 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="youtube=d35bCiekD3A">{{cite web |last1=Wolfe |first1=Tom |title=In Defense of George W. Bush |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d35bCiekD3A |website=[[FORA.tv]] |publisher=YouTube |access-date=19 October 2022 |language=en |date=July 10, 2008}}</ref> Bush reciprocated the admiration, and is said to have read all of Wolfe's books, according to friends in 2005.<ref name="politics">[[Elisabeth Bumiller|Bumiller, Elisabeth]] (February 7, 2005), [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07letter.html "Bush's Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission"], ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved May 15, 2010</ref> Wolfe supported the [[United States invasion of Afghanistan|U.S. invasion of Afghanistan]], but opposed the [[Iraq War]].<ref name="Elite"/>

In a 2004 interview with ''[[The Guardian]]'', Wolfe said that his "idol" in writing about society and culture is [[Émile Zola]]. Wolfe described Zola as "a man of the left", one who "went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not—and was not interested in—telling a lie."<ref name="Elite"/> In the same interview, Wolfe said that [[political correctness]] "has probably had a good effect because it is now bad manners to use racial epithets."<ref name="Elite"/> However, in 2017, he attacked political correctness, mocking it as perpetual outrage.<ref name="Trump">{{cite news|last=Busnel|first=François|url=https://airmail.news/books/2020/9/flak-catchers|title=Flak Catchers|work=Airmail.news|date=22 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630013251/https://airmail.news/books/2020/9/flak-catchers|archive-date=30 June 2023}}</ref>

In 2016, Wolfe described [[Donald Trump]] as a "lovable megalomaniac...The childishness makes him seem honest."<ref>{{cite news|last=Neumayr|first=George|title=Tom Wolfe's View of Trump|url=https://spectator.org/65918_tom-wolfes-view-trump/|work=The American Spectator|date=30 March 2016}}</ref> Wolfe later compared Trump to literary character [[Jay Gatsby]].<ref name="Trump"/>

===Religion===
Wolfe was an [[atheist]] but said that "I hate people who go around saying they're atheists".<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2016/08/27/491492977/in-tom-wolfes-kingdom-speech-is-the-one-weird-trick In Tom Wolfe's 'Kingdom,' Speech Is The One Weird Trick]</ref> Of his religious upbringing, Wolfe observed that he "was raised as a [[Presbyterian Church (USA)|Presbyterian]]".<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/Fs8lKSmGlLA Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180516150714/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs8lKSmGlLA Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{Citation|title=Back to Blood: Michael Moynihan interviews Tom Wolfe (12/20/2012)|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs8lKSmGlLA|language=en|access-date=2021-08-31}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Trotti|first=John Boone|date=1981|title=Thomas Wolfe: The Presbyterian Connection|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23328545|journal=Journal of Presbyterian History|volume=59|issue=4|pages=517–542|jstor=23328545|issn=0022-3883}}</ref> He sometimes referred to himself as a "lapsed Presbyterian." Wolfe was a defender of [[Catholic school]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tom Wolfe: Catholic Schools Are The Right Stuff|url=https://www.ncregister.com/news/tom-wolfe-catholic-schools-are-the-right-stuff|access-date=2021-09-17|website=NCR|date=March 19, 2000 |language=en}}</ref> Wolfe was also critical of the [[sexual revolution]], describing it as a "sexual carnival." He expressed sympathy towards Puritanical-Christian views on sexuality.<ref name="Elite"/>

==Personal life==
Wolfe lived in New York City with his wife Sheila, who designed covers for ''[[Harper's Magazine]]''. They had two children: a daughter, Alexandra; and a son, Thomas Kennerly III.<ref name=SouthernMan>{{cite news| first= William| last= Cash | url= http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/SOUTHERN-MAN-3491413.php | title= Southern Man| work= [[San Francisco Chronicle]]| via= sfgate.com| publisher= Hearst Communications | date= November 29, 1998| access-date= December 12, 2015}}</ref>

==Death and legacy==
Wolfe died from an infection in [[Manhattan]] on May 14, 2018, at the age of 88.<ref name = "TimesObit" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/tom-wolfe-death-author-death-bonfire-vanities-right-stuff-kool-aid-ken-kesey-a8352771.html|title=Tom Wolfe, author of 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' and 'The Right Stuff', dies aged 87|date=May 15, 2018|website=independent.co.uk}}</ref>

The historian Meredith Hindley credits Wolfe with introducing the terms "statusphere", "the right stuff", "[[radical chic]]", "[["me" decade|the Me Decade]]" and "good ol' boy" into the [[English language|English lexicon]].<ref>[http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/biography.html Tom Wolfe — Jefferson Lecturer Biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114144945/http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/biography.html |date=January 14, 2012 }}, Meredith Hindley, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2006</ref>

Wolfe was at times incorrectly credited with coining the term "[[trophy wife]]". His term for extremely thin women in his novel ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' was "social X-rays".<ref>{{cite news| url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E6DA1031F932A35756C0A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print |title= On language; Trophy Wife| author-link= William Safire| first= William | last= Safire| work= The New York Times| date= May 1, 1994}}</ref>

According to journalism professor [[Ben Yagoda]], Wolfe is also responsible for the use of the [[present tense]] in magazine profile pieces; before he began doing so in the early 1960s, profile articles had always been written in the [[past tense]].<ref>{{cite book| title= When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It| first= Ben| last= Yagoda| author-link= Ben Yagoda| year= 2007| page= [https://archive.org/details/whenyoucatchadje00yago/page/228 228]| publisher= Broadway Books| isbn= 9780767920773| url= https://archive.org/details/whenyoucatchadje00yago| url-access= registration}}</ref>

Wolfe is the subject of the 2023 documentary film ''[[Radical Wolfe]]''. The film was based on a 2015 article by [[Michael Lewis]] and directed by Richard Dewey. The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' described it as "a sprightly look at what made the reporter-trained Wolfe into the insider's outsider, how he made the leap to explicating — in supercharged, acrobatic sentences — our fast-changing, roving world of cliques, castes and subgroups".<ref>{{cite news |last= |first= |date=September 23, 2023 |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-09-23/radical-wolfe-review-tom-wolfe-bonfire-of-the-vanities-right-stuff |title=Review: In 'Radical Wolfe,' a New Journalism lion roars on page, while his life is quieter |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |access-date=December 26, 2024 }}</ref>

==List of awards and nominations==
{{columns-list|colwidth=35em|
* 1961 [[Washington Newspaper Guild Award]] for Foreign News Reporting
* 1961 Washington Newspaper Guild Award for Humor
* 1970 [[American Society of Journalists and Authors|Society of Magazine Writers]] Award for Excellence
* 1971 D.F.A., [[Minneapolis College of Art and Design]]
* 1973 Frank Luther Mott Research Award
* 1974 D.Litt., [[Washington and Lee University]]
* 1977 Virginia Laureate for literature
* 1979 National Book Critics Circle Finalist General Nonfiction Finalist for ''The Right Stuff''
<!--* 1980 [[American Book Award]] for ''The Right Stuff'' --><!-- National Book Awards were called "American" for several years from 1980, but must not be confused with [[American Book Awards]]
 -->
* 1980 [[National Book Award for Nonfiction]] for ''The Right Stuff''<ref name=nba1980>
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1980 "National Book Awards — 1980"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved March 11, 2012.</ref><ref group=lower-alpha>
This was the [[List of winners of the National Book Award#General Nonfiction|award for hardcover "General Nonfiction"]].<br />From 1980 to 1983 in [[National Book Award#History|National Book Award history]], there were dual awards for hardcover and paperback books in many categories, including [[National Book Award for Nonfiction|several nonfiction subcategories]]. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including the 1980 General Nonfiction.</ref>
* 1980 [[Columbia Journalism Award]] for ''The Right Stuff''
* 1980 [[Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award]] of the [[American Institute of Arts and Letters]]
* 1980 Art History Citation from the [[National Sculpture Society]]
* 1983 L.H.D., [[Virginia Commonwealth University]]
* 1984 L.H.D., [[Stony Brook Southampton|Southampton College]]
* 1984 [[Dos Passos Prize|John Dos Passos Prize]]
* 1986 [[Gari Melchers Medal]]
* 1986 Benjamin Pierce Cheney Medal from [[Eastern Washington University]]
* 1986 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence
* 1987 National Book Critics Circle fiction Finalist for ''The Bonfire of the Vanities''
* 1987 D.F.A., [[School of Visual Arts]]
* 1988 L.H.D., [[Randolph–Macon College]]
* 1988 L.H.D., [[Manhattanville College]]
* 1989 L.H.D., [[Longwood University|Longwood College]]
* 1990 [[St. Louis Literary Award]] from [[Saint Louis University]] Library Associates<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html|title=Saint Louis Literary Award|publisher=Saint Louis University|website=slu.edu|access-date=July 26, 2016|archive-date=August 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823003924/http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |title=Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award |publisher=Saint Louis University Library Associates |website=slu.edu |access-date=July 25, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731082313/http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |archive-date=July 31, 2016  }}</ref>
* 1990 D.Litt., [[St. Andrews University (North Carolina)|St. Andrews Presbyterian College]]
* 1990 D.Litt., [[Johns Hopkins University]]
* 1993 D.Litt., [[University of Richmond]]
* 1998 [[National Book Award]] Finalist for ''[[A Man in Full]]''<ref name=nba1998>{{cite web| url= https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1998 |title= National Book Awards – 1998| publisher= National Book Foundation| website= nationalbook.org| access-date= March 11, 2012}}</ref>
* 2001 [[National Humanities Medal]]
* 2003 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for Lifetime Achievement
* 2004 [[Literary Review#Bad Sex in Fiction Award|Bad Sex in Fiction Award]] from [[Literary Review]]
* 2005 Golden Plate Award of the [[Academy of Achievement|American Academy of Achievement]]<ref>{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=[[American Academy of Achievement]]|url=  https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#the-arts}}</ref>
* 2006 [[Jefferson Lecture in Humanities]]
* 2010 [[National Book Foundation]] [[National Book Award#Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters|Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters]]<ref name=medal>{{cite web| url= http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters.html |title= Distinguished Contribution to American Letters| publisher= National Book Foundation| website= nationalbook.org| access-date= March 11, 2012| agency= Includes Wolfe's acceptance speech}}</ref>
}}

== Television and film appearances ==
*Wolfe's legs appeared in [[John Lennon]] and [[Yoko Ono]]'s 1971 film ''[[Up Your Legs Forever]]''<ref name="Cott2013">{{cite book|author=Jonathan Cott|title=Days That I'll Remember: Spending Time With John Lennon & Yoko Ono|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ei8DAwAAQBAJ|date=July 16, 2013|publisher=Omnibus Press|isbn=978-1-78323-048-8|page=74}}</ref>
* Wolfe was featured as an interview subject in the 1987 [[PBS]] documentary series ''Space Flight''.
* In July 1975, Wolfe was interviewed on ''[[Firing Line (TV series)|Firing Line]]'' by [[William F. Buckley Jr.]], discussing ''[[The Painted Word]]''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ujnMvAzoDWYC&q=firing+line+with+william+f.+buckley+jr+tom+wolfe&pg=PA73|title=Conversations with Tom Wolfe|first=Dorothy McInnis|last=Scura|date=January 1, 1990|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9780878054275|via=Google Books}}</ref>
* Wolfe was featured on the February 2006 episode "The White Stuff" of [[Speed (American cable network)|Speed Channel]]'s ''[[Unique Whips]]'', where his [[Cadillac]]'s interior was customized to match his trademark white suit.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775843/plotsummary|title=The White Stuff|date=March 8, 2006|via=IMDb}}</ref>
* Wolfe guest-starred alongside [[Jonathan Franzen]], [[Gore Vidal]] and [[Michael Chabon]] in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "[[Moe'N'a Lisa]]", which aired November 19, 2006. He was originally slated to be killed by a giant boulder, but that ending was edited out.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://superspringfield.blogspot.com/2005/11/tom-wolfe-is-screaming.html|title=Crisis on Infinite Springfields: "Tom Wolfe Is Screaming"|first=Corey|last=Bond|date=November 30, 2005}}</ref> Wolfe was also used as a sight gag on ''The Simpsons'' episode "[[Insane Clown Poppy]]", which aired on November 12, 2000. Homer spills chocolate on Wolfe's trademark white suit, and Wolfe rips it off in one swift motion, revealing an identical suit underneath. The episode "[[Flanders' Ladder]]" was dedicated to the memory of Wolfe as seen at the end of the episode's credits.

==Bibliography==
===Nonfiction===
* ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'' (1963)
* ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (1968)
* ''[[The Pump House Gang]]'' (1968)
* ''[[Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers]]'' (1970)
* ''[[The New Journalism]]'' (1973) (Ed. with E.W. Johnson)
* ''[[The Painted Word]]'' (1975)
* ''[[Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine]]'' (1976)
* ''[[The Right Stuff (book)|The Right Stuff]]'' (1979)
* ''[[In Our Time (Tom Wolfe book)|In Our Time]]'' (1980)
* ''[[From Bauhaus to Our House]]'' (1981)
* ''The Purple Decades'' (1982; selected excerpts of previous works)
* ''[[Hooking Up]]'' (2000)
* ''[[The Kingdom of Speech]]'' (2016)

===Novels===
* ''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities]]'' (1987)
* ''[[Ambush at Fort Bragg]]'' (novella, 1996/7)<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/08/29/a-wolfe-in-sheepish-clothing/9b8f8eb1-da76-4330-80ce-a60cdc55014a| title = A Wolfe in Sheepish Clothing – The Washington Post| newspaper = [[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>
* ''[[A Man in Full]]'' (1998)
* ''[[I Am Charlotte Simmons]]'' (2004)
* ''[[Back to Blood]]'' (2012)

===Featured in===
* ''[[The Sixties (miniseries)|The Sixties]]'', episode 7 (2014)
* ''[[Smiling Through the Apocalypse]]'' (2013)
* ''[[Salinger (film)|Salinger]]'' (2013)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://topmovies.se/person/Tom-Wolfe-144669.html|title=About Tom Wolfe|website=Topmovies.se|access-date=March 2, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906040321/http://topmovies.se/person/Tom-Wolfe-144669.html|archive-date=September 6, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* ''[[Felix Dennis: Millionaire Poet]]'' (2012)
* ''[[Tom Wolfe Gets Back to Blood]]'' (2012)
* ''[[A Light in the Dark: The Art & Life of Frank Mason]]'' (2011)
* ''[[Bill Cunningham New York]]'' (2010)
* ''[[Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson]]'' (2008)
* ''[[Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film]]'' (2006)
* ''[[Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens]]'' (2006)
* ''[[Breakfast with Hunter]]'' (2003)
* ''[[The Last Editor]]'' (2002)
* ''[[Dick Schaap: Flashing Before my Eyes]]'' (2001)
* ''[[Where It's At: The Rolling Stone State of the Union]]'' (1998)
* ''[[Peter York's Eighties: Post]]'' (1996)
* ''[[Bauhaus in America]]'' (1995)
* ''[[Manufacturing Consent (film)|Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media]]'' (1992)
* ''[[Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol]]'' (1990)
* ''[[Spaceflight]]'' (1985)
* ''[[Up Your Legs Forever]]'' (1971)

===Notable articles===
* "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', March 1965.
* "Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street's Land of the Walking Dead!" ''New York Herald-Tribune'' supplement (April 11, 1965).
* "Lost in the Whichy Thicket," ''New York Herald-Tribune'' supplement (April 18, 1965).
* "The Birth of the New Journalism: Eyewitness Report by Tom Wolfe." ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'', February 14, 1972.
* "The New Journalism: A la Recherche des Whichy Thickets." ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'', February 21, 1972.
* "Why They Aren't Writing the Great American Novel Anymore." ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', December 1972.
* "[[The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening|The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening]]" ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'', August 23, 1976.
* "[[Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast]]", ''[[Harper's Magazine|Harper's]]''. November 1989.
* [http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/Wolfe-Sorry-But-Your-Soul-Just-Died.php "Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died."] ''[[Forbes]]'' 1996.
* "Pell Mell." ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'' (November 2007).
* "The Rich Have Feelings, Too." ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' (September 2009).

== Writing about Tom Wolfe ==
* "[https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/how-tom-wolfe-became-tom-wolfe?srsltid=AfmBOooo7ql_9MGKMbqgziOAVrkEvjqnVEln4r93pn4HrHSbxizUGIcz How Tom Wolfe became&nbsp;... Tom Wolfe]" by [[Michael Lewis]] in ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' (November 2015).
* ''Tom Wolfe's America: Heroes, Pranksters, and Fools'' by Kevin T. McEneaney. Praeger, 2010.

== See also ==
* [[Creative nonfiction]]
* [[Hysterical realism]]
* Wolfe's concept of [[fiction-absolute]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}
* {{Citation
| title      = Tom Wolfe (Modern Critical Views)
| editor-last      = Bloom
| editor-first      = Harold
| year      = 2001
| location      = Philadelphia
| publisher      = Chelsea House Publishers
| isbn      = 0-7910-5916-2
| url      = https://archive.org/details/tomwolfe00haro
}}
* {{Citation |title     = Tom Wolfe
 |last      = McKeen
 |first     = William.
 |year      = 1995
 |location  = New York
 |publisher = Twayne Publishers
 |isbn      = 0-8057-4004-X
 |url       = https://archive.org/details/tomwolfe00mcke
}}
* {{Citation
| title     = Tom Wolfe; A Critical Companion
| last      = Ragen
| first     = Brian Abel.
| year      = 2002
| location  = Westport, Connecticut
| publisher = Greenwood Press
| isbn      = 0-313-31383-0}}
* {{Citation |title      = Conversations with Tom Wolfe
 |editor-last       = Scura
 |editor-first      = Dorothy
 |year       = 1990
 |location   = Jackson
 |publisher  = University Press of Mississippi
 |isbn       = 0-87805-426-X
 |url-access = registration
 |url        = https://archive.org/details/conversationswit00scur
}}
* {{Citation
| title     = The Critical Response to Tom Wolfe
| editor-last      = Shomette
| editor-first     = Doug
| year      = 1992
| location  = Westport, Connecticut
| publisher = Greenwood Press
| isbn      = 0-313-27784-2
}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Tom Wolfe}}
{{wikiquote|Tom Wolfe}}
* [http://www.tomwolfe.com/ Official website]
* [http://archives.nypl.org/mss/22833 Tom Wolfe papers, 1930-2013], held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division, [[New York Public Library]].
* [https://achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/#interview Tom Wolfe Biography and Interview] with [[Academy of Achievement|American Academy of Achievement]]
* {{Citation|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2226/the-art-of-fiction-no-123-tom-wolfe| title=Tom Wolfe, The Art of Fiction No. 123| author= George Plimpton| work=The Paris Review| date=Spring 1991| volume=Spring 1991| issue=118|postscript=. }}
* [http://fnewsmagazine.com/wp/2008/10/tom-wolfe-on-electric-kool-aid-gang-bangs-and-nasa/ Article about Wolfe's recent public appearance at the Chicago Public Library from fNews (a publication of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago)]
* "The Word According to Tom Wolfe": [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216093822/http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=ZWY2NTViMTM4NGU3YjM2NTAwNTA4ZTQ0NGRjMzcxOTQ= Episode 1], [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216093833/http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MjA0ZjhiMWI1YTQxNGY0YmM0Y2YwMTc4NDIyYmQwMDU= Episode 2], [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216093914/http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=N2RhZWYzZGE1ZGE2NmYzOTQxNDFiZGZmZTc1NTE0YTI= Episode 3], [https://web.archive.org/web/20080513070217/http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MDg4NDI2M2RhOTQ4MzgyZmE4ZTY2OGU3NTc3ZjJmNzM%3D Episode 4], and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216093929/http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MjRmYTYzYWI0YjQzYmFlYjkyODIwYTFmZDg3ZGRmNGU= Episode 5] from [[National Review]]
* [https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/wolfe-pell-mell/ ''The Future of the American Idea: Pell-Mell'' in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' (November 2007)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080229060247/http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/shock_of_the_new/ June 2006 interview from ''frieze'']
* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-143,00.html Tom Wolfe author page] by [[TheGuardian.com]]
* [https://www.nationalreview.com/1999/05/non-fiction-100/ National Review 100 Best Non Fiction Books 20th century]
* [http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/lecture.html Tom Wolfe's 2006 Jefferson Lecture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120228013635/http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/lecture.html |date=February 28, 2012 }}
* [http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/WolfeSoulDied.php ''Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110519104227/http://bookpage.com/interview/tom-wolfe%27s-steamy-portrait-of-college-life Tom Wolfe's Steamy Portrait of College Life] — an interview about "I Am Charlotte Simmons" in BookPage (December 2004)
* {{C-SPAN|13547}}
** [http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TomW ''In Depth'' interview with Wolfe, December 5, 2004]
* [http://www.constructionlitmag.com/culture/books/should-tom-wolfe-still-hate-the-new-yorker/ "Should Tom Wolfe Still Hate ''The New Yorker?''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181226084546/http://constructionlitmag.com/culture/books/should-tom-wolfe-still-hate-the-new-yorker/ |date=December 26, 2018 }} in ''Construction Magazine'' (January 9, 2012).

{{Tom Wolfe}}
{{Authority control}}

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