Tag Archives: Tom Wolfe

12.01.12
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BACK TO BLOOD-MIAMI-PAINTED BY TOM WOLFE

I opened Tom Wolfe’s Back To Blood  on Thursday afternoon!  It is now Saturday afternoon and every word on each of the 704 pages has been digested!  I guess I could simply end my overview with that!  However, it can not go unsaid that Tom Wolfe engages the reader from the first page whetheimages-2r it be Bonfire of the Vanities or my favorite Wolfe novel, I am Charlotte Simmons.

Back to Blood catapults the reader into the political and social structure of Miami.  There is little left out of this vivid painting. A WASP publisher of the Miami Herald seeks to avoid controversy at all costs. Add to the mix a young aspiring  reporter, A black chief of police, a Cuban mayor, and a police officer, also Cuban, who with great consistency finds himself in the middle of  two huge stories that threaten the delicate balance between all of the competing constituencies within this cosmopolitan melting pot. There is also plenty of  humor, bringing back images of Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen, another Miami based novel.

With great skill, Wolfe introduces the ethnic beauty of the women of Miami who play a major role adding to the complexity of relationships as played out by the protagonist police officer Nestor Camacho.  There are dozens of contemporary themes as a video of a police drug take down goes viral, a local psychiatrist specializing in pornographic addiction becomes a high-profile TV Doctor, a stunning light-skinned Haitian woman of French heritage is a love interest.  Miami Art Basel and a new Miami Art Museum become a focal point in a fake painting fraud perpetuated by a Russian Oligarch and his entourage.   Wolfe carefully  and with great creativity brings all of these factions together in a tumultuous conclusion.

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Place Back to Blood on the Christmas gift list for friends who enjoy a good read.  Pick up the hard cover as any Tom Wolfe novel is worth a permanent place in a book lovers library. Luckily, Back to Blood arrived when the family was traveling and I only had my dog to offend with my face in a book for two days. What pleasure great writing can bring and the new Tom Clancy novel Threat Vector is on the way December 4th!

02.18.11
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Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe Great Novelists at Opposite Ends of the 20th Century

A good friend recently commented that Tom Wolfe’s  The Bonfire of the Vanities was the best novel written in the last half of the 20th Century. Wow! Certainly the good thing about loving books is that opinions are all wonderfully subjective.  Of course, I loved Bonfire,  it was on everyone’s lips and the movie was fabulous but as usual, never quite as good as the book!

Another friend glanced at my bookshelf and saw I am Charlotte Simmons, another Tom Wolfe novel, but one that never received the acclaim of Bonfire.  It is all in the eye of the beholder but I think Charlotte is every bit as good a read.

Arriving on the scene at a prestigious university (many think it is Duke) , comes  Charlotte Simmons, poor, devout, strict, proud and beautiful. She is straight from an uneducated but loving family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. From the moment Charlotte and her folks arrive in their less than fashionable pick-up she is confronted with the swells from the well-to-do.  Charlotte is not only beautiful, she is also brilliant and both  of these attributes are immediately perplexing and yes threatening to her new classmates.  As an incentive for you to enjoy this great book I will leave  to your imagination further details of this unfolding story.

Tom Wolfe’s research into college life is impeccable and the hard work is infused into the storytelling.  He has placed every character you could  possibly imagine at this prestigious campus. You will grow to love and cheer Charlotte Simmons and hope for only the worst for her detractors.  If you  have a daughter of college age you will bite your nails and briefly consider a commuter campus! Do not overlook I Am Charlotte Simmons. 

Tom Wolfe is from Virginia and now lives in New York City. There was another southern novelist, this one from North Carolina, named Thomas Wolfe.  Thomas Wolfe , who died  at thirty-eight in 1938,  was not related to Tom Wolfe, but he wrote two great books about coming of age.  The first,  Look Homeward Angel, was followed by Of Time and the River.

Whereas my friend considers Tom Wolfe the best novelist of the late 20th century none other than  William Faulkner described Thomas Wolfe as the best of the early 20th century.  Both of Thomas Wolfe’s books are worth every reading moment. Look Homeward Angel is by far the better known and is considered an autobiographical novel. Of Time and the River is a sequel and is every bit as captivating although a bit more patience is required.

If you have read any of  these  Tom Wolf and Thomas Wolfe novels I would enjoy you sharing your impressions.