in American studies from Yale, Wolfe went to work as a journalist. He decided to become a writer at the age of six in emulation of his father, an editor, whom he often saw writing at his desk.

Tom Wolfe was born in 1931 in Richmond, Virginia. Starting with an account of the lives of military pilots and their wives, the book progresses to the selection of the first seven astronauts, their grueling training, their relationship with the press and public, and the Project Mercury flights themselves.Įvents in History at the Time of the Narrative The Right Stuff is a history of the early years of the U.S. I asked the legendary Andy Grove, also no longer with us, about the Wolfe profile of his long-deceased boss, and Grove unleashed a typically expletive-laden condemnation of Wolfe's sendup, arguing that Wolfe didn't understand Silicon Valley.A nonfiction narrative of space travel set in the United States from 1945 to 1963 published in 1979. I first read Wolfe's Esquire article a baker's dozen years ago when I was reporting a profile of Intel's new CEO, Paul Otellini, who died last year. His December, 1983, profile in Esquire of co-founder Robert Noyce captured the early days of the technology industry, a feat all the more astounding given Wolfe's outsider status in these parts.Īnyone who thinks today's 'brogrammer' culture in the Valley is somehow new needs to read Wolfe's insightful account of the proclivity of Intel men to leave their wives for the young women at work who found the engineers' stories and business triumphs far more entertaining than their homebound spouses did. This being Data Sheet, it may shock you to know that Wolfe also wrote one of the best magazine feature stories every published about Silicon Valley. His Bonfire of the Vanities recorded an era, the 1980s on Wall Street, as well as any writer ever will. He excelled at literary criticism, cultural and political portraits, and then, as if there was nothing left to achieve, fiction. There may be no better example of the genre than The Right Stuff, Wolfe's meticulously researched and entertainingly told tale of the early American astronauts and the daring test pilot, Chuck Yeager, who never joined their ranks.

Wolfe, who died Tuesday at age 88, was a lion of 20th century journalism, a hard-working, creative, brilliant writer, and a colorful character in his own right. Journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe was one of the finest practitioners of narrative nonfiction ever to write in English. If you're fortunate enough to practice a craft and to achieve some modest success at it, and if you have even a modicum of humility, then you're hyper aware of the giants of your field, the people whose least impressive effort is better than you'll ever accomplish. This article first appeared in Data Sheet, Fortune's daily newsletter on the top tech news.

The right stuff tom wolf