'New Journalism' apostle dies dies at 88

The birth of the literary movement known as New Journalism can be traced to one coffee-fueled episode in 1963: Tom Wolfe’s all-nighter. He had been sent to California by Esquire magazine to report on a gathering of custom-car designers and casually cool teenagers.

Photos of lacquer-painted cars were laid out on the pages, and the magazine was about to go to press, but Wolfe wasn’t able to complete his first assignment for Esquire. Finally, managing editor Byron Dobell told him to write up his notes as a memo, which the editors would shape into a story. Wolfe began typing at 8 p.m.

“I wrapped up the memorandum about 6:15 a.m.,” he later wrote, “and by this time it was 49 pages long. I took it over to Esquire as soon as they opened up, about 9:30 a.m. About 4 p.m. I got a call from Byron Dobell. He told me they were striking out the ‘Dear Byron’ at the top of the memorandum and running the rest of it in the magazine.”

The story, “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy Kolored (Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” was more than a dutiful report on the car convention. Wolfe had discovered an underground culture among

the West Coast car designers, hailing them as the vanguard of a new form of modern art, not unlike Picasso.

“I don’t have to dwell on the

point that cars mean more to these kids than architecture did in Europe’s great formal century, say, 1750 to 1850,” he wrote. “They are freedom, style, sex, power, motion, color — everything is right there.”

Seldom had journalism seen such a display of observation, wry humor and go-for-baroque verbal dexterity.

Wolfe, who had a transformative effect on journalism and became a best-selling novelist, died Monday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 88.

NEW YORK TIMES FILE Author Tom Wolfe, seen in his Manhattan apartment in 1998, was known for his clever word play and books such as “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” He died Monday at the age of 88.