The Purple Decades: A Reader

Front Cover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct 1, 1982 - Literary Collections - 418 pages
2 Reviews
Tom Wolfe's The Purple Decades brings together the author's own selections from his list of critically acclaimed publications, including the complete text of Mau-Mauing and the Flak Catchers, his account of the wild games the poverty program encouraged minority groups to play.
 

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THE PURPLE DECADES-A READER

User Review  - Kirkus

Not too many readers would agree with Joe David Bellamy (who provides the introduction here) that Tom Wolfe's New Journalism offers "the definitive, comprehensive, tuned-in portrait of our age." In ... Read full review

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - mrtall - LibraryThing

Excellent essays from one of America's greatest writers and social observers. The Purple Decades spans Wolfe's non-fiction best from the 60s and 70s, including the all-time greats 'Radical Chic' and ... Read full review

Selected pages

Contents

Title Page
BOB SPIKE
THE LAST AMERICAN HERO
THE VOICES OF VILLAGE SQUARE
A SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE
THE WOMAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING
THE PUMP HOUSE GANG
THE MIDATLANTIC
ON THE
THESE RADICAL CHIC EVENINGS
MAUMAUING THE FLAK CATCHERS
JOUSTING WITH
THE ME DECADE AND THE THIRD GREAT
THE INTELLIGENT COEDS GUIDE
Copyright

Other editions - View all

The Purple Decades: A Reader
Tom Wolfe,Joe David Bellamy
Limited preview - 1982
The Purple Decades: A Reader
Tom Wolfe
Snippet view - 1987
The Purple Decades: A Reader
Tom Wolfe
Snippet view - 1982
View all »

Common terms and phrases

American artists Avenue Babbs Bauhaus beautiful Black Panther Party Black Panthers called chuck comes Confidential dashiki deck didn’t dirty door Dowd drivers everything eyes face feet Fireball Roberts Flak Catcher flight flying front ghetto girl goddamned going gonna Haiphong hair hand happened Harrison he’s head Helene hell inside Jane Holzer Junior Johnson Kesey kids knew Lenny live look man’s mau-mauing microphone Mike Todd movie never night North North Wilkesboro Speedway old boys one’s pick pilots poverty pull Pump House Pump House Gang Radical Chic roll Sandy says Scull seemed shirt sitting smile sort sound started stock car racing story Street talking tell there’s they’re thing Tom Wolfe trying turned voice walking Walter De Maria wearing whole Wilkes County Winchell Wolfe Wolfe’s Yale Yeager yells York young

About the author (1982)

Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) was one of the founders of the New Journalism movement and the author of such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, as well as the novels The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. As a reporter, he wrote articles for The Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, Esquire, and New York magazine, and is credited with coining the term, “The Me Decade.”

Among his many honors, Tom was awarded the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Award, the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University, graduating cum laude, and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He lived in New York City.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Purple Decades
TitleThe Purple Decades: A Reader
AuthorTom Wolfe
ContributorJoe David Bellamy
PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982
ISBN1429955007, 9781429955003
Length418 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Collections / Essays
Literary Criticism / American / General
  
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