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Combing Through the Public Library’s Tom Wolfe Archive From ‘Acid’ to ‘Bonfire,’ an Archive That Sizzles
(7 months later)
In March 1988, when Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was parked at the top of the best-seller list, 962 Fifth Avenue was known to seemingly everyone as the gilded home of the mistress of Sherman McCoy, the book’s high-living investment banker protagonist.In March 1988, when Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was parked at the top of the best-seller list, 962 Fifth Avenue was known to seemingly everyone as the gilded home of the mistress of Sherman McCoy, the book’s high-living investment banker protagonist.
Everyone, that is, except a woman lucky — or unlucky — enough to have just bought an apartment there.Everyone, that is, except a woman lucky — or unlucky — enough to have just bought an apartment there.
“As a very private person who wishes to remain that way and who has no taste whatsoever for the kinds of flashy lifestyles which you describe,” the woman wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfe, “I am embarrassed and ashamed when friends gleefully inform us that our new address is in your book and has become a rather notorious one.”“As a very private person who wishes to remain that way and who has no taste whatsoever for the kinds of flashy lifestyles which you describe,” the woman wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfe, “I am embarrassed and ashamed when friends gleefully inform us that our new address is in your book and has become a rather notorious one.”
Next time around, she asked, couldn’t he take steps to avoid harming another “unsuspecting person”?Next time around, she asked, couldn’t he take steps to avoid harming another “unsuspecting person”?
The letter — one of more than 10,000 in the Wolfe archive, which the New York Public Library agreed to acquire last November for $2.15 million — may be one of the odder complaints in the history of Manhattan real estate angst (and not just because the address technically no longer existed, having been rolled into that of the grand limestone pile at 960 Fifth).The letter — one of more than 10,000 in the Wolfe archive, which the New York Public Library agreed to acquire last November for $2.15 million — may be one of the odder complaints in the history of Manhattan real estate angst (and not just because the address technically no longer existed, having been rolled into that of the grand limestone pile at 960 Fifth).
But it’s just one striking artifact in a massive trove of material still being processed at the library’s services center in Queens, where a reporter recently got an early look at roughly 170 linear feet of manuscripts, reporter’s notebooks, newspaper clippings, sketches and other materials, much of it kept by Mr. Wolfe in elegant orange Queen Bee file boxes made in Richmond, Va., his birthplace.But it’s just one striking artifact in a massive trove of material still being processed at the library’s services center in Queens, where a reporter recently got an early look at roughly 170 linear feet of manuscripts, reporter’s notebooks, newspaper clippings, sketches and other materials, much of it kept by Mr. Wolfe in elegant orange Queen Bee file boxes made in Richmond, Va., his birthplace.
“I guess I’m a pack rat,” Mr. Wolfe, 84, said in an interview. As for the library’s acquisition of the archive, he added, “I’m not sure if it makes me feel immortal or posthumous.”“I guess I’m a pack rat,” Mr. Wolfe, 84, said in an interview. As for the library’s acquisition of the archive, he added, “I’m not sure if it makes me feel immortal or posthumous.”
It’s not just Mr. Wolfe’s vision that is preserved there. Running through his papers, the library’s archivists say, is an unusually rich vein of incoming correspondence showing just how editors, literary agents, research subjects and ordinary readers — to say nothing of his tailors, for whom he sometimes sketched out elaborate instructions — saw him.It’s not just Mr. Wolfe’s vision that is preserved there. Running through his papers, the library’s archivists say, is an unusually rich vein of incoming correspondence showing just how editors, literary agents, research subjects and ordinary readers — to say nothing of his tailors, for whom he sometimes sketched out elaborate instructions — saw him.
“You have letters from nobodies filed next to letters from somebodies,” said William Stingone, the library’s assistant director for archives and manuscripts. “It gives a full sense of the work and the career evolving over time.”“You have letters from nobodies filed next to letters from somebodies,” said William Stingone, the library’s assistant director for archives and manuscripts. “It gives a full sense of the work and the career evolving over time.”
On the somebody side, there are letters from writer friends like Gay Talese, William F. Buckley Jr. and Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s rambling missives — including a six-page letter insisting that he had not called “The Right Stuff,” Mr. Wolfe’s 1979 book about the early space program, a pile of dog excrement — sometimes suggest a bit of rivalry with Mr. Wolfe, his more button-down fellow pioneer of the New Journalism.On the somebody side, there are letters from writer friends like Gay Talese, William F. Buckley Jr. and Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s rambling missives — including a six-page letter insisting that he had not called “The Right Stuff,” Mr. Wolfe’s 1979 book about the early space program, a pile of dog excrement — sometimes suggest a bit of rivalry with Mr. Wolfe, his more button-down fellow pioneer of the New Journalism.
“Whoops. O.K., O.K. — I once called you ‘crusty,’ ” Mr. Thompson wrote. But “you’ve also been decent & honorable enough to resist the constant ‘Let’s You and Him fight’ kind of pressures that these swine are constantly putting on both of us.”“Whoops. O.K., O.K. — I once called you ‘crusty,’ ” Mr. Thompson wrote. But “you’ve also been decent & honorable enough to resist the constant ‘Let’s You and Him fight’ kind of pressures that these swine are constantly putting on both of us.”
Crusty or not, Mr. Wolfe seemed to some readers of his early books like a countercultural Virgil — “one of the really free people, right there in the vortex of Wow-everythingness!,” as one correspondent put it. In 1970 a young man wrote seeking advice on which commune to join; a young woman sent a postcard reporting that she had read parts of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” Mr. Wolfe’s rollicking 1968 account of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, to a toddler she was babysitting for. (“She liked it,” the woman wrote.)Crusty or not, Mr. Wolfe seemed to some readers of his early books like a countercultural Virgil — “one of the really free people, right there in the vortex of Wow-everythingness!,” as one correspondent put it. In 1970 a young man wrote seeking advice on which commune to join; a young woman sent a postcard reporting that she had read parts of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” Mr. Wolfe’s rollicking 1968 account of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, to a toddler she was babysitting for. (“She liked it,” the woman wrote.)
But then came “Radical Chic,” Mr. Wolfe’s scathing account of a fund-raiser for the Black Panthers held in Leonard Bernstein’s luxurious Park Avenue apartment. The article caused a firestorm when it first appeared in New York magazine in 1970. Suddenly, the author seemed to some less like a freewheeling guide to youth culture than a reactionary — “Wolfe in White Clothing,” as a tongue-in-cheek place card for another Park Avenue dinner party in the archive puts it.But then came “Radical Chic,” Mr. Wolfe’s scathing account of a fund-raiser for the Black Panthers held in Leonard Bernstein’s luxurious Park Avenue apartment. The article caused a firestorm when it first appeared in New York magazine in 1970. Suddenly, the author seemed to some less like a freewheeling guide to youth culture than a reactionary — “Wolfe in White Clothing,” as a tongue-in-cheek place card for another Park Avenue dinner party in the archive puts it.
The thick file of responses to the article and the subsequent book version include congratulatory notes from Mr. Talese (signed “Don Corleone”), Katharine Graham and Raymond Price, a special assistant to Richard M. Nixon. A writer from Marvel Comics wrote to ask whether Mr. Wolfe would be interested in collaborating on a comic book about “a fictitious bunch of ‘Radical Chic’ social leaders who align themselves with a militant (nonblack) group which turns out to be bent on world domination.” (The result, surely one of the strangest cameos in comics history, shows the impeccably white-suited author taking notes as the Incredible Hulk works an Upper East Side drawing room.)The thick file of responses to the article and the subsequent book version include congratulatory notes from Mr. Talese (signed “Don Corleone”), Katharine Graham and Raymond Price, a special assistant to Richard M. Nixon. A writer from Marvel Comics wrote to ask whether Mr. Wolfe would be interested in collaborating on a comic book about “a fictitious bunch of ‘Radical Chic’ social leaders who align themselves with a militant (nonblack) group which turns out to be bent on world domination.” (The result, surely one of the strangest cameos in comics history, shows the impeccably white-suited author taking notes as the Incredible Hulk works an Upper East Side drawing room.)
Others were far less amused. A woman with the surname Ortiz forwarded a note canceling her subscription to New York magazine, saying, “We are not pet animals!”Others were far less amused. A woman with the surname Ortiz forwarded a note canceling her subscription to New York magazine, saying, “We are not pet animals!”
And while Barbara Walters wrote to thank him for portraying her “with such accuracy,” other guests who attended the party were scathing. One, signing her name only as “Ash Blond” (a reference to Mr. Wolfe’s description of her), sent a three-page blast defending the party’s good intentions. “If we all do not work hard for constructive change,” she wrote, future events “will make the Panthers look like an old-ladies tea party.”And while Barbara Walters wrote to thank him for portraying her “with such accuracy,” other guests who attended the party were scathing. One, signing her name only as “Ash Blond” (a reference to Mr. Wolfe’s description of her), sent a three-page blast defending the party’s good intentions. “If we all do not work hard for constructive change,” she wrote, future events “will make the Panthers look like an old-ladies tea party.”
Mr. Bernstein’s sister, Shirley, accused him of writing “as if on order from Mssrs. Agnew and Hoover” and, perhaps worse, bringing an “uninvited tape recorder” into a private party.Mr. Bernstein’s sister, Shirley, accused him of writing “as if on order from Mssrs. Agnew and Hoover” and, perhaps worse, bringing an “uninvited tape recorder” into a private party.
“I took that as a compliment,” Mr. Wolfe said. “I took shorthand notes. But according to her, I got it all right.”“I took that as a compliment,” Mr. Wolfe said. “I took shorthand notes. But according to her, I got it all right.”
Sometimes he got things wrong. The archive contains a 1979 letter from John Glenn on Senate letterhead complimenting him on “The Right Stuff” but noting that the car he had driven in the early 1960s (in contrast to his Corvette-driving fellow pilots) was not a Peugeot, but a more fuel-efficient Prinz.Sometimes he got things wrong. The archive contains a 1979 letter from John Glenn on Senate letterhead complimenting him on “The Right Stuff” but noting that the car he had driven in the early 1960s (in contrast to his Corvette-driving fellow pilots) was not a Peugeot, but a more fuel-efficient Prinz.
“With my kids being a little older than some of the others at that time, I was already concerned about their college $,” he wrote. (The error was corrected.)“With my kids being a little older than some of the others at that time, I was already concerned about their college $,” he wrote. (The error was corrected.)
“The Right Stuff,” which won the National Book Award, elevated Mr. Wolfe well out of the Prinz class. The archive contains invitations to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s Christmas party. Letters note his canonization in both the Norton Anthology of American Literature and Trivial Pursuit.“The Right Stuff,” which won the National Book Award, elevated Mr. Wolfe well out of the Prinz class. The archive contains invitations to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s Christmas party. Letters note his canonization in both the Norton Anthology of American Literature and Trivial Pursuit.
By the time of “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” his much-debated 1989 essay in Harper’s Magazine faulting American novelists for abandoning the tradition of social realism he had aimed to revive with “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” some readers saw a self-promoting bully.By the time of “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” his much-debated 1989 essay in Harper’s Magazine faulting American novelists for abandoning the tradition of social realism he had aimed to revive with “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” some readers saw a self-promoting bully.
“After reading Tom Wolfe’s article,” a man from Woodstock, N.Y., wrote in an unpublished letter to the editor in the archive, “I pictured him looking out the window of his apartment at the ‘billion-footed beast,’ and thinking, ‘There must be an awful lot of those toes I can step on!”“After reading Tom Wolfe’s article,” a man from Woodstock, N.Y., wrote in an unpublished letter to the editor in the archive, “I pictured him looking out the window of his apartment at the ‘billion-footed beast,’ and thinking, ‘There must be an awful lot of those toes I can step on!”
“Bonfire” certainly stepped on many, and not just on Fifth Avenue. An owner of the British tailoring company John Blades expressed dismay that one character, the “execrable” British tabloid journalist Peter Fallow, was depicted as wearing one of its blazers. The president of City College wrote to correct the description of its supposedly lax admissions standards.“Bonfire” certainly stepped on many, and not just on Fifth Avenue. An owner of the British tailoring company John Blades expressed dismay that one character, the “execrable” British tabloid journalist Peter Fallow, was depicted as wearing one of its blazers. The president of City College wrote to correct the description of its supposedly lax admissions standards.
Mr. Wolfe’s wry valentine to 1980s excess also provoked more philosophical reactions.Mr. Wolfe’s wry valentine to 1980s excess also provoked more philosophical reactions.
“After reading ‘Bonfire of the Vanities,’ ” one admirer from Baltimore wrote, “I am compelled to ask the obvious question: Why bother living in New York?”“After reading ‘Bonfire of the Vanities,’ ” one admirer from Baltimore wrote, “I am compelled to ask the obvious question: Why bother living in New York?”