Conversations with Tom Wolfe

"Literary journalist," "lowly social historian," "chronicler of his times," and "champion of realism" are among the many epithets heaped upon Tom Wolfe by himself and his myriad admirers and critics. In this collection of interviews spanning his richly productive career, Wolfe is seen as a writer imitating no one and riding the crest of each latest wave in contemporary America.

For more than a quarter of a century he has been the vivid and varied chronicler of our time—from the Californian car customizers and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters of the sixties to the ambition-driven inhabitants of New York City in the eighties. His hybrid of reporting and fiction-writing has received perhaps more applause than any other literary journalism, and his first major work of fiction, Bonfire of the Vanities, rested at the top of the bestseller lists for more than a year.

Here is Tom Wolfe talking—about the subjects of his eight books, about the writers he admires, about the discipline of writing, about his politics and his disposition to satire and parody. As he explains his attempt "to show the world 'life in our times,'" this collection of delightfully witty and informative interviews reveals the insights and the intellect of one of America's brightest and most appealing authors.

"Literary journalist," "lowly social historian," "chronicler of his times," and "champion of realism" are among the many epithets heaped upon Tom Wolfe by himself and his myriad admirers and critics. In this collection of interviews spanning his richly productive career, Wolfe is seen as a writer imitating no one and riding the crest of each latest wave in contemporary America.

For more than a quarter of a century he has been the vivid and varied chronicler of our time—from the Californian car customizers and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters of the sixties to the ambition-driven inhabitants of New York City in the eighties. His hybrid of reporting and fiction-writing has received perhaps more applause than any other literary journalism, and his first major work of fiction, Bonfire of the Vanities, rested at the top of the bestseller lists for more than a year.

Here is Tom Wolfe talking—about the subjects of his eight books, about the writers he admires, about the discipline of writing, about his politics and his disposition to satire and parody. As he explains his attempt "to show the world 'life in our times,'" this collection of delightfully witty and informative interviews reveals the insights and the intellect of one of America's brightest and most appealing authors.

Tom Wolfe's high-wire act of language has provided a sort of cultural funhouse mirror ever since he started publishing in the mid-1960s, first as a journalist and later as the acclaimed author of novels The Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full. Wolfe occasionally raises hackles, and he always provokes a response.