Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is an American author and journalist, best known for his association with and influence over the New Journalism literary movement, in which literary techniques are used extensively and traditional values of journalistic objectivity and evenhandedness are rejected. He began his career as a regional newspaper reporter in the 1950s, but achieved national prominence in the 1960s following the publication of such best-selling books as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and two collections of articles and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth2 March 1931
CityRichmond, VA
CountryUnited States of America
Working on newspapers, you're writing to a certain length, often very brief pieces; you tend to look for easy forms of humor - women can't drive, things like that. That's about the level of a lot of newspaper humor. It becomes a form of laziness.
To me, the great joy of writing is discovering. Most writers are told to write about what they know, but I still love the adventure of going out and reporting on things I don't know about.
I read somewhere that writers, as they get older, become more and more perfectionist. Which may be because they think more highly of themselves and they worry about their reputations. I think there's some truth to that.
I wrote 'The Painted Word,' about modern art, and was denounced as reactionary. In fact, it is just a history, although a rather loaded one.
I found a great many pieces of punctuation and typography lying around dormant when I came along - and I must say I had a good time using them.
We are now in the Me Decade - seeing the upward roll of the third great religious wave in American history.
That's mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time. But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning.
There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.
It's not just that reporting gives you a bigger slice of life, gives - lends verisimilitude to what you are doing - it's that it feeds the imagination.
Everybody is going to be what they are, and whatever they are, there's not going to be anything to apologize about.
A glorious place, a glorious age, I tell you! A very Neon renaissance - And the myths that actually touched you at that time - not Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses and Aeneas - but Superman, Captain Marvel, and Batman.
If you label it this, then it can't be that.
Miami is a melting pot in which none of the stones melt. They rattle around.
I've never met an American who wanted to build an empire.