Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe was a journalist and novelist who was one of the foremost practitioners of New Journalism, a term he coined to describe journalism in which the writer applies the conventions of fiction to reportage. Wolfe was born in Richmond, Virginia, and attended college at Washington and Lee University. After graduating, he tried out for a spot as a pitcher on the New York Giants but failed to make the team. He then went on to receive his PhD from the American Studies department at Yale University, where he wrote his dissertation about communist activity among American writers from 1929 to 1942. After receiving his PhD, instead of pursuing a career in academia, Wolfe became a reporter, first for the Springfield Union in Springfield, Massachusetts. He then went on to work as a reporter at the Washington Post and the New York Herald Tribune. His first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, was a compendium of essays culled from his newspaper and magazine articles and was published in 1965. Wolfe published his next book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in 1968. The book examines the use of psychedelic drugs among members of the 1960s counterculture and follows the exploits of a group led by Ken Kesey. Wolfe went on to write several other nonfiction books—including The Right Stuff (1979)—before switching to fiction and publishing The Bonfire of the Vanities in 1987. After publishing The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe continued to write nonfiction as well as more works of fiction, including the novels A Man in Full (1998), I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), and Back to Blood (2012).