Now in his ‘80’s, the writer and journalist Tom Wolfe is regarded as one of America’s great literary giants. Not just highly-successful but as an ingenious self-promoter quite infamous too. One whose works are well read and reviewed although not necessary well-regarded by all his literary peers.
In the early part of his writing career Wolfe was a journalist and in the late 1960’s was responsible for a movement that became known as ‘New Journalism’ essentially a combination of news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time.
His first novel ‘The Bonfire of The Vanities’ was published in 1987 and was a runaway critical and commercial success and was on the NY Bestselling List for weeks and then eventually it was made into a Hollywood Blockbuster. It cemented Wolfe’s growing reputation, and now the author in his signature white suit became a NY ‘landmark’ and national celebrity.
It took him some 11 years to publish his second novel, and ‘A Man in Full’ was published in 1998. The book’s reception was not universally favorable, though it received glowing reviews in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, and was No. 1 on the NY Times Best Selling list for 10 weeks. It wasn’t just authors John Updike and Norman Mailer that disliked it, but also a great many citizens of Atlanta where the book had been set. They had welcomed Wolfe into their homes and lives for him to do his research and then were devastated to read how he had portrayed their town. Some prominent locals viewed the novelist as a pen-wielding Gen. William T. Sherman, devastating Atlanta anew.
Now in 2012 Wolfe is about to publish his next follow up which his new publishers are reputedly paying him some $7 million for. This time the setting is Miami …. my home town … and when Wolfe visited the city on several different occasions he allowed filmmaker Oscar Corral to follow him around to record him doing his very thorough research.
Wolfe met with local journalists, police (the Chief is an old friend) industrialists, art-collectors etc and he even got to meet people in the ‘hoods’ when he visited some of our sketchier areas such as Overtown. The Mayor and Council Officers were all tripping over themselves to heap praise on Wolfe and welcome him so enthusiastically. So much so that I cannot be at all convinced that Mayor Diaz has ever actually read any of Wolfe’s works but such is the nature of so much of our city, he was attracted simply by the man’s celebrity alone.
Corral‘s interesting movie gave a wonderful insight as to how this great writer starts to formulate his ideas and how by being on the ground he can authenticate them more and add essential local color. Interestingly enough what was only revealed in the Q & A after was the fact that Wolfe have covered the Cuban Revolution in 1960 for the Washington Post (for which he won an award from the Newspaper Guild) which made sense of how well he connected to Miami’s Latino community.
If anything the movie was just far too reverential and almost fawning in part : the man is very good, but he is not God after all. My worry is that when ‘Back to Blood’ is finally published later this year will all these people still be as keen on extolling Mr Wolfe’s virtues, or will they like some of Atlanta’s good folks be canceling his invitations to lunch?
If you are a Wolfe fan, you’ll love this. If you are a Miamian passionate about your city, you may want to hold off a while.
P.S. I saw this at the World Premiere at ‘O’ Cinema but it has just been announced that PBS TV have acquired the film, so it will be on your small screen in the near future.
★★★★★★★
