The foremost theorist and best-known practitioner of New Journalism, Tom Wolfe has become almost synonymous with the journalistic movement he helped foster in the mid 1960s. Critics praise or reject nearly every component of Wolfe's work including his choice of subject matter; his content and perspective; his writing style; and, of course, his journalistic method. After several books and numerous articles, Wolfe's writings continue to provoke and sustain debate.

Thomas Kinnerly Wolfe Jr. was born 2 March 1931 in Richmond, Virginia, to Helen Hughes and Thomas Kinnerly Wolfe Sr., an agronomist, college professor, and editor of the Southern Planter. Southern raised in a traditional and stable family structure, the younger Thomas would later say: "I was lucky, I guess, in my family in that they had a very firm idea of roles: Father, Mother, Child. Nothing was ever allowed to bog down into those morass-like personal hang-ups. And there was...