Tom Wolfe's 'Back to Blood': preposterous, contrived, yet wildly entertaining
Tom Wolfe's 'Back to Blood' tries to do for Miami what his previous novels did for New York and Atlanta, but critics say he falls short.
Tom Wolfe's 'Back to Blood' tries to do for Miami what his previous novels did for New York and Atlanta, but critics say he falls short.
After an 8-year hiatus, Tom Wolfe is back in Wolfian style, taking on another city (Miami) with a sweeping social portrait painted through a cast of larger-than-life characters tackling familiar Wolfian themes: race, class, social striving, vanity, and prejudice.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really a novel about immigration,鈥� Wolfe tells the UK鈥檚 Telegraph about his new novel, 鈥淏ack to Blood.鈥� 鈥淢iami is a melting pot in which none of the stones melt. They rattle around. A lot of Russians are there now, Haitians, Nicaraguans. Miami is plan B for everyone in Latin America at this point. And everybody hates everybody, as my guide put it.鈥�
鈥淏ack to Blood,鈥� Wolfe鈥檚 first novel after 8 years, tries to do for Miami what 鈥淏onfire of the Vanities鈥� did for New York, and 鈥淎 Man in Full鈥� did for Atlanta, as The New York Times tells it.
And try Wolfe did. The 81-year-old journalist-turned-novelist carried out years of exhaustive first-hand research 鈥� including dropping in at a strip club, participating in an orgiastic yachting regatta, and visiting a slew of black crack slums 鈥� before penning this 3-pound, 722-page Goliath that aspires to be a sweeping social novel that tries to tell the story of Miami.
But by most accounts, he fell far short.
The New York Times calls 鈥淏ack to Blood鈥� 鈥渁 soapy, gripping and sometimes glib novel that鈥檚 filled with heaps of contrivance and cartoonish antics.鈥�
鈥淭his is the sort of material Wolfe used to eat for breakfast, back in his journalism days,鈥� writes the LA Times, adding, 鈥淭he plots he creates feel contrived in comparison to those he has discovered in the world.鈥�
The New Yorker鈥檚 James Wood disparaged 鈥淏ack to Blood鈥檚鈥� 鈥測ards of flapping exaggeration.鈥�
You see, Wolfe, a National Book Award winner and bestselling writer, was a pioneer of 鈥淣ew Journalism,鈥� the now widely used technique of applying techniques of fiction (descriptive language, dialogue, rich scene setting) to nonfiction. And that鈥檚 why his best works remain his early nonfiction, 鈥淭he Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,鈥� 鈥淭he Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,鈥� 鈥淩adical Chic.鈥�
But the widely accepted understanding of Wolfe is that his journalistic acumen doesn鈥檛 transfer to his novels.
鈥淗e is a giant among nonfiction writers, but the rap on him as a novelist is that he thinks wide and not deep,鈥� writes The Washington Post.
Still, it鈥檚 difficult to argue 鈥淏ack to Blood鈥� fails to entertain. Wolfe tackles the larger-than-life city of Miami through a colorful cast of characters including a Cuban-American policeman in too-tight uniform, a WASP newspaper editor, a swaggering Russian oligarch (read: mobster), and a randy psychiatrist who treats pornography addicts.
Though the characters suffer from sarcastic generalizations, over-stereotyping, and noxious personalities, Wolfe nonetheless 鈥渄epicts a dog-eat-dog world in which people behave like animals, scratching and clawing their way up the greasy social pole,鈥� writes the NYT. 鈥淎s he鈥檚 done in the past, Mr. Wolfe excavates the world of the superrich with cackling glee, reduces politicians to caricatures of self-interest and mocks or eviscerates practically everyone else.鈥�
Preposterous, overwrought, contrived, wildly ambitious, and outrageously entertaining. It is, in other words, classic Wolfian fare.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.