Tom Wolfe Dead at 88

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

Related Post Roulette

3 Responses

  1. Burt Likko says:

    Dude could write. Even his lesser novels stand out well above much of the rest of the field. (Thinking about A Man In Full.) Whatever perspective it was he saw the world from, it was unique and he used very clear eyes to see it from there.

    Living where I do, The Right Stuff is the #2 book right after the amalgamated versions of the Christian Bible, and it remains the #1 movie.

    We’re culturally poorer for his passing.Report

    • I was just talking to my dad about this on the phone. For a kid like me who grew up wanting to be Chuck Yeager reading the Right Stuff once I was old enough was just amazing. I didn’t realize at the time it was just good parenting, my father using something I was already interested in to backdoor me into reading really good authors like Wolfe. I had posted a tweet about my father giving me some of the books from his library and one of those happened to be the original cover “The Right Stuff” I read as a kid, complete with the funky plastic dust covers they used to do back then. Definitely be getting that one out and sharing with my own children.Report

  2. Anne says:

    My six degrees (or less) of separation story. While in graduate school in NYC had to photograph an architectural element on a building and get a close up of the degradation of the stone. Found a great detail on a building and a classmate and I talked our way into the building to take a close up from inside a third floor room of the element outside. Well the house and office we were in was Tom Wolfe’s. My classmate (NOT ME) unplugged his computer as we leaned out the window to get our picture. Never told a soul…plugged it back in praying he did regular back ups and that we had not wiped out his next novel. Always felt horribly guilty when I would see him out on the street.Report