Tom Wolfe wore white suits, picked fights with the literary establishment, and invented a style of journalism that read like fiction. From The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test to The Bonfire of the Vanities, he chronicled American status anxiety with a precision that enraged his subjects and thrilled his readers.

This episode traces Wolfe’s career from his early newspaper work through the New Journalism movement to his bestselling novels, examining how a Virginia gentleman became America’s sharpest cultural satirist.

• How he pioneered the New Journalism alongside Gay Talese and Hunter Thompson
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and his time with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters
• The Bonfire of the Vanities and its portrait of 1980s New York
• Why the white suit was both costume and weapon