DEATH OF A LEGEND
Tom Wolfe dead at 88 – The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities author passes away in hospital in New York
Wolfe, who also wrote Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, died yesterday in a hospital in Manhattan, according to his agent
FAMED author and journalist Tom Wolfe has died at the age of 88.
The author of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test passed away in a hospital in Manhattan yesterday, according to his agent Lynn Nesbit.
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She said Wolfe, who had a knack for coining phrases including "radical chic" and "the me decade," died of an unspecified infection.
Wolfe's literary work, coined "new journalism", was revolutionary for his insistence that the only way to tell a great story was to go out and report it.
His writing style was rife with exclamation points, italics and improbable words.
Among his other acclaimed books were The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities, a satire of Manhattan-style power and justice that became one of the best-selling books of the '80s.
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His works - fiction and non-fiction alike - looked at realms ranging from the art world to Wall Street to 1960s hippie culture and touched on the issues of class, power, race, corruption and sex.
He once said: "I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status."
Wolfe catchphrase, ";me decade", summed up the self-indulgence of the 1970s and the "right stuff" spoke of the characteristics of the first US astronauts and their test pilot predecessors.
He was never deterred by the fact that he often did not fit in with his research subjects, partly because he was such a sartorial dandy, known for his white suits.
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Wolfe was in his mid-70s while hanging out with college kids and working on the novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons".
And he was a fairly conservative drug-free observer in a coat and tie while travelling with Ken Kesey and his LSD-dropping hippie tribe known as The Merry Pranksters for "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" in the '60s.
By looking so out of place, he figured people would be more prone to explain things to him.
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