THE PURPLE DECADES-A READER

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 fact, a reprint collection like this—with Wolfe's hyped-up style and waspish tone changing so little from subculture to subculture, from decade to decade—tends to suggest that the New Journalism offers more insight into the new journalists than it does into their supposed subject-matters. Still, there can be little argument with Bellamy's assertion that the major Wolfe contribution to cultural self-awareness has been "his emphasis on the hidden and sometimes peculiar manifestations of status-seeking in American life." And, for those eager to sample or re-sample Wolfe's satires, there's a fair sampling here: six pieces from The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby (1965), with stock-car racing, Greenwich Village, and Baby Jane Holzer; a trio from The Pump House Gang (1968), including the well-known portrait of the social-climbing Sculls; Radical Chic, of course; "the Me Decade" (est, etc.); and briefer selections from recent books. Best on fads, weaker when matters of substance intrude: a representative Wolfe parade—and a feast for nostalgic trend-watchers.