On March 2, 1931, Tom Wolfe was born. Wolfe is a journalist and novelist whose magazine articles in the 1960s and 1970s helped to change our ideas of how journalism should be written. He is almost always seen in the white suit that has been his standard attire for more than 50 years, and he has become such a cultural icon that he was invited to voice his animated self in a 2006 episode of The Simpsons.
Wolfe began his career at the Washington Post in 1959. Unlike most reporters in Washington, he wasn't really interested in politics, which he later said is what got him the job. He won Newspaper Guild awards for his reporting on Cuba, and for his use of humor in some of his city beat reporting.
He moved to the New York Herald Tribune in 1962, where he worked as a general assignment reporter and features writer. When New York's newspapers went on strike in late 1962, he began working on an article for Esquire about the hot rod scene in southern California. He found it difficult to put his observations into the form of a standard article, and in frustration, wrote a long letter to his editor detailing what he'd seen. The editor published that letter as "There Goes (Vroom Vroom) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby," and it was one of the first examples of what came to be called New Journalism.
New Journalism flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, in the hands of such writers as Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Truman Capote, and Gay Talese. It was less devoted to objectivity, and used the literary techniques of fiction to tell its stories. There was more dialogue, reported as full conversation instead of sound-bite quotes, and stories were told in long, novelistic scenes instead of dry recitation of facts. Wolfe frequently spent long periods of time shadowing his subjects – he called it "saturation reporting" -- in order to provide details and observations that more traditional journalism might overlook.
The Esquire hot rod article was the centerpiece of Wolfe's first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (e-book, print). He published another collection, The Pump House Gang (print), in 1968. On the same day, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (e-book, print) was published; it was an immersive look at the author Ken Kesey and his followers, the Merry Pranksters, as they took a cross-country road trip together, exploring the possibilities of the new drug culture.
Wolfe received the National Book Award for The Right Stuff (e-book, print), his 1979 book about the early space program and the Mercury Seven astronauts. A film adaptation (DVD) was released in 1983.
In 1984, Wolfe turned to fiction for the first time. He found the process difficult, and as a way of forcing himself to write, he proposed to Rolling Stone that they publish the novel in serialized installments. The Bonfire of the Vanities (e-book, e-audio, print) was published between July 1984 and August 1985; after some major revisions, the novel was published in book form in 1987. The novel explores racial and class issues in New York, with heavy emphasis on powerful men (and those who would be powerful) jockeying for position. The 1990 film adaptation (DVD) was a famously troubled production; Julie Salamon's The Devil's Candy (print) reports on the making of the movie.
Wolfe dealt with similar themes with later novels set in different cities. The 1998 A Man in Full (e-book, e-audio, print) is set in Atlanta, and 2012's Back to Blood (e-book, e-audio, print) moves to Miami. The outlier among Wolfe's novels is the 2004 work I Am Charlotte Simmons (e-book, e-audio, print), which follows several students through their first year at an elite private university.
Wolfe's most recent work is The Kingdom of Speech (e-book, e-audio, print), a nonfiction work in which he explores the importance of speech to the advancement of human society.
Wolfe's other work includes the essay collections Hooking Up (e-book, e-audio, print) and The Purple Decades (e-book, print); and two books on modern art and architecture, The Painted Word (e-book, e-audio, print) and From Bauhaus to Our House (e-book, print).
Also This Week
March 3, 1852
Daniel Murray was born. Murray was a central figure in the African-American community of Washington, DC, during the years of Reconstruction after the Civil War. He began working at the Library of Congress while still in his teens, only the second black staff member at the Library. In 1881, he was appointed Assistant Librarian, a post he held for more than 40 years. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's The Original Black Elite (e-book, print) centers on Murray as a representative of those African-Americans who rose to important positions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, proving wrong the white supremacists who believed that black men and women could never be fully integrated into American society.
March 5, 1853
Steinway & Sons was founded in Manhattan. The company manufactures pianos, and is noted for the quality of its work and for its innovative advancements in manufacturing technique; Steinway holds more than 120 patents in piano making. In 88 Keys (e-book, print), Miles Chapin describes the long process of building a Steinway grand piano. You can watch the Steinway builders at work in the documentary Note by Note.
March 5, 1901
Louis Kahn was born. Kahn was one of the 20th century's major architects. His best-known buildings are public spaces – museums, churches, libraries – rather than corporate commissions, and they tend to be large, dramatic constructions of exposed brick or concrete. Wendy Lesser's You Say to Brick (e-book, e-audio, print) is a biography of Kahn's life and career; the documentary Louis Kahn: Silence and Light visits several of his most important buildings.
March 5, 1956
Teena Marie was born. Marie was a popular R&B singer of the 1980s. Her biggest hits included "Square Biz," "Lovergirl" and "Ooo La La La." She was one of the most successful white R&B singers of the era, though her skill with R&B and soul music led many radio listeners to assume that she was African-American. Much of Marie's music is available for streaming at Hoopla and Freegal.