Wolfe, Tom (Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr.), 1931–, American journalist and novelist, b. Richmond, Va. Wolfe first gained fame for his studies of contemporary American culture in a style known as New Journalism, which combined personal impressions and opinions, reconstructed dialogue, slang, and academic jargon. His journalistic works include The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965), The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers (1970), The Right Stuff (1975), From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), and the anthology Hooking Up (2000). He has also written novels: The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), a satiric look at a New York City torn by race and class; A Man in Full (1998), the saga of an Atlanta millionaire and a tellingly comic portrait of the New South; and I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), a glimpse at randy contemporary collegians.

Wolfe, Tom

orig. Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr.

(born March 2, 1930, Richmond, Va., U.S.) U.S. journalist and novelist. He earned a doctorate from Yale University and then wrote for newspapers and worked as a magazine editor, becoming known as a proponent of New Journalism, the application of fiction-writing techniques to journalism. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) chronicles the life of a traveling group of hippies. The Right Stuff (1979; film, 1983) examines the first U.S. astronaut program. Other controversial nonfiction books attacked fashionable 1960s leftism, modern abstract art, and international architectural styles. His novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987; film, 1990), a novel of urban greed and corruption, was a best seller. Wolfe's later works include the novels A Man in Full (1998) and I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004).

Wolfe, (Thomas Kennerley) Tom (1931– ) writer, artist; born in Richmond, Va. He received his doctorate in American Studies from Yale University in 1957 and began a career as a reporter for the Springfield Union (1956–59); the Washington Post (1959–62); and the New York Herald Tribune (1962–66). The originator of such phrases as "radical chic," and "the me decade," his "new journalism" essays were collected under such titles as The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965). His other nonfiction titles include the Electric Acid Koolaid Test (1968), The Right Stuff (1979), and From Bauhaus to Our House (1981). An artist, he had two one-man shows in New York City (1965, 1974) and published a collection of his drawings called In Our Time (1980). The Bonfire of the Vanities, his first novel, was published in 1987. Cultivating his "dandy" image with such affectations as his trademark white suit and arch mannner, he seemed genuinely committed to his conservative stance against a generally liberal New York intellectual world.