I love The Electric Kook-Aid Acid Test, and The Right Stuff and other journalism-based work. I was not a big fan, at all, of his attempts at fiction. But man, did he have an impact on writing - him and Hunter S. Thompson carried the flag for Gonzo Journalism.
I really liked “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. “A Man in Full” was pretty good, too.
“I am Charlotte Simmons” was ridiculous.
I started “Back to Blood” but found it completely unreadable.
I found his satire too caustic. Whether it was journalism-based, such as Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers, or his novels, he slagged everyone, and did it with a tone was loftier and haughtier than any pretentious douchebags he was trying to skewer.
And I got really, really tired of his use of exclamation points!!!
But Kool-Aid and Right Stuff should be required reading.
The Electric Kook-Aid Acid Test is one of the most important pieces of literature in my life, right up there with Lord of the Rings, The Man in the High Castle and Introduction to Archaeology.
RIP Mr. Wolfe; you done good.
The Right Stuff was very good. The early essays were okay to good, but you sort of had to be there.
OTOH, his recent stuff like The Kingdom of Speech and I Am Charlotte Simmons are idiotic dreck.
From the Wikipedia article on Back to Blood: “Back to Blood was an even bigger commercial failure than I Am Charlotte Simmons, selling 62,000 copies as of February 2013, according to Bookscan. Considering the publishers paid $7 million for the manuscript, this means the book cost approximately $112 per reader.”
I don’t think there’s an unfinished Great American Novel sitting on his desk.
You need to understand this about me: Aviation is my greatest passion. I worked at Edwards AFB, and worked as an extra on The Right Stuff. Read the book a couple/few times, and watch the movie every year or two. So Tom Wolfe’s death resonates with me.
Requiescat in pace, Mr. Wolfe.
Wolfe was one of my picks in the Death Pool. His most recent work showed a noticeable drop in quality that suggested a decline in mental coherence which I picked up on at least a year ago. But he was one of my favorite writers ever. I’ve never encountered another journalist who had the ability to combine extremely serious subject matter with a non-stop torrent of sarcastic humor. And his research into whatever he was writing about was always meticulous. He had the spirit of an anthropologist and the writing skill of a top-notch reporter, and the humor of a well-seasoned raconteur. I will miss him, a lot. It was always on my bucket list to meet him someday, and since there was only one degree of separation between us - a mutual friend, whose daughter also knew Wolfe’s daughter from college - I wish I had tried to make it happen a long time ago.
Particular favorites: The Right Stuff, Bonfire, his essays about classic cars and the culture of car customization, his essays about rock music and drugs in the 60s, and his cartoons. Yes, most people don’t know this, but he was a pretty competent illustrator. I have an anthology of his cartoons called “In Our Time” and they’re cool as shit, totally New Yorker level. I’m not exactly sure why his visual art is not better known, but I guess it was overshadowed by his extremely prolific writing career.
I’ve seen headlines that read something like “novelist Tom Wolfe died.” That’s sacrilege. It’s just bizarre that he thought he needed to be seen as a fiction writer to gain prestige in NYC literary circles. Bonfire was interesting but nothing more. I couldn’t finish anything after that.
But his nonfiction! I arrived in college a few years too late to see the start of the New Journalism, but I found his books and the movement he was a part of to be eyeopening and breathtaking. Close, minutely reported details that combined into a deeper portrait than the official sanctioned bios that were the norm. His opinions were just as good. The Painted Word skewered the modern art movement and looks even better in the hindsight of art stagnated for the past 50 years. From Bauhaus to Our House did much the same for architecture. Can anyone name a contemporary style for what should be a critical communal artform?
Wolfe’s style was not for everyone, and he eventually became a parody of himself because everyone with a style that extreme does. So what. He was hugely influential, immensely readable, and utterly full of himself. The perfect writer. 
Pfft…Wolfe couldn’t carry Hunter Thompson’s jock strap. But The Right Stuff was good.
RIP.
If there was a Like button here, I would click it. This sums it up.
I still have my first editions of Kool-Aid and Right Stuff. I loved his non-fiction.
The two were equally talented, just worked in different idioms. They’re often compared, but they didn’t actually have all that much similarity. I’ve heard it described as: “Wolfe was a fly on the wall, Thompson was a fly in the ointment.” Wolfe just silently observed and wrote, Thompson perpetually stirred shit and trolled people to get crazy reactions. Thompson was also far more directly involved in the 60s counterculture, Wolfe was basically an objective observer.
Wolfe made a huge impact on me in the 60s and 70s. I think he fell away as a writer in later life just as Joseph Heller did but their earlier works, especially Kool-Aid Acid Test and Catch-22 helped shape the person I am today.
RIP Mr Wolfe.
*The Bonfire of the Vanities *suffered from a huge amount of adaptation decay when they tried to film it. I think it’s a great novel. I liked *A Man in Full * a lot but the poor reviews for I am Charlotte Simmons put me off.
Every obit I see says “Bonfire…author…”. Sometimes it includes Right Stuff. But Kool-Aid should be listed first. Loved that book. I couldn’t get through Bonfire.
In high school, I enjoyed reading Electric KoolAid, Pump House, Mau Mau, Bonfire, Right Stuff, Tangerine Flake… I wasn’t around for the 60s but it seemed to summarize some subcultures. Wolfe’s later work wasn’t nearly as good, his non-fiction didn’t catch the zeitgeist and his fiction became tougher to plod through. But I’ll miss the man in the white suit.
I thought In Our Time was okay. Mauve Gloves and Purple Decades were also good.
I loved The Painted Word and Bauhaus to Our House. Fascinating how modern art and architecture evolved (and with so little resistance).
I was introduced to him with Acid Test, The Pump House Boys, and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, but didn’t read much of him after that for no particular reason. Still, even without the novels, he was an important writer.
Being a contrarian, I loved his fiction, especially A Man in Full. Having lived in Atlanta for the 25 years prior to its publication, Wolfe was amazingly spot on in his depictions of (white) New South culture of the day. Chapter 9 (IIRC), “The Lay of the Land” was as accurate a portrayal of the divisions of wealth and power in the city as any I read, and the book remains on my shelf to this day.
RIP Mr. Wolfe.
One of the greats, it’s sad he’s passed.
I agree his earlier stuff was much better, with Electric Kool-Aid what I’d consider his best work - everything after A Man in Full had an undercurrent of “outraged old man describing the hell-in-a-handbasket the world has become” to my mind.
But there’s no doubt the world has been better off for having him in it!
I never knew he did illustrations, I’ll have to look those up. Thanks for pointing that out, Jacquernagy.
I owe a huge debt to Tom Wolfe I read a review of Acid Test when I was 16, got the book out of the library and read it. When I returned it, the librarian asked me for my opinion and then told me that Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was about the same person as the bus driver and I’d probably like it.
I read it. I read all of Kerouac’s books and realized there were other people like me on the planet. And I also have read everything Tom Wolfe ever wrote.
RIP, Tom.