Category Archives: Tom Wolfe

Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast: A Literary Manifesto for the New Social Novel

Grok says: Tom Wolfe’s essay “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast: A Literary Manifesto for the New Social Novel,” published in Harper’s Magazine in November 1989, is a passionate and provocative call to arms for American writers to reclaim the realistic novel … Continue reading

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What Would Tom Wolfe See?

I ask Grok: “What would Tom Wolfe, born in 1930, at the height of his powers, observe about status markers and status striving in America today?” Grok says: Tom Wolfe, the sharp-eyed chronicler of American social hierarchies, would likely find … Continue reading

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NYRB: ‘The Illusion of the First Person’

In Merve Emre’s essay in the Nov. 3, 2022 edition of the New York Review of Books, she claims that the individual is a fiction. Now, obviously, the individual is never only an individual. They have other identities. But Emre’s … Continue reading

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Tom Wolfe and the Rise of Donald Trump: A Review of Wolfe’s Writings

Wight Martindale Jr. writes in 2018: * I believe that intellectually and, in some personal habits as well, Wolfe and Trump are similar. But they lived in separate worlds. Perhaps someday a doctoral student will show us that all along … Continue reading

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The Origins Of Tom Wolfe’s Journalistic Voice

Matthew Ricketson writes: What characterizes Wolfe’s journalistic voice, then, are: exaggeration, energy, inventiveness, playfulness, a keen sense of performance, and a wickedly satiric eye. His voice has won glowing praise and sharp detractors. William McKeen, author of the one of … Continue reading

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