Tom Wolfe

Early Life

• Born in 1931 in Richmond, Virginia
• Father taught agronomy at Virginia Tech
• Mother encouraged writing and art
• By the age of nine, Wolfe had started writing.
• Wrote and illustrated a life of Mozart.

Early Life

• Attended Washington and Lee University, then an all-male school
• Wolfe majored in English and helped found a literary magazine, Shenandoah.
• Obtained doctoral degree from Yale in American studies

Early Journalism Career

• 1956: The Springfield Union in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• 1959: Wolfe has said he was hired by The Washington Post because of his lack of interest in politics.
• 1962: Joined The New York Herald-Tribune, which encouraged writers to break conventions of newspaper writing

New Journalism

• During a 1963 New York newspaper strike, Wolfe approached Esquire about an article on the hot rod culture of Southern California.
• He struggled with writing the article and editor Byron Dobell suggested that Wolfe send his notes.
• Wolfe wrote Dobell a letter, ignoring all conventions of journalism.
• Dobell simply removed the salutation "Dear Byron” and published the notes as the article.
• The result, published in 1964, was "There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.”

New Journalism

• Wolfe called the experiment, new journalism, in which some journalists and essayists experimented with a variety of literary techniques, mixing them with the traditional ideal of dispassionate, even-handed reporting.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was a narrative account of the adventures of the Merry Pranksters.
• Also highly experimental in its use of onomatopoeia, free association, and eccentric use of punctuation—such as multiple exclamation marks and italics—to convey the manic ideas and personalities of Ken Kesey and his followers

1960s-1970s

• 1965: A collection of his articles was published under the title The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
• 1968: The Pump House Gang focused on popular culture, architecture, politics, and the transformation of American life after World War II.

1960s-1970s

• 1970: Published two essays in book form in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,” a critical account of a party given by Leonard Bernstein to raise money for the Black Panther Party
• "Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers,” about the practice of using racial intimidation ("mau-mauing") to extract funds from government welfare bureaucrats ("flak catchers”)

1980s-2000s

• 1979: Published The Right Stuff, an account of the pilots who became America's first astronauts
• 1987: Published a novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, about the moral corruption of the upper class of New York City
• 1998: Published second novel, A Man in Full, focused on Atlanta and its growth
• 2004: Published I Am Charlotte Simmons, about sexual promiscuity at colleges