What’s Tom Wolfe Got to Say for Himself?
After hearing the news about Tom Wolfe‘s decampment to Little, Brown, and getting FSG‘s Jonathan Galassi to confirm it was all about the money, Leon Neyfakh heard from the Man in White himself, who didn’t say much about changing publishers after more than four decades other than describing the process as “all very friendly.”
What Wolfe did open up about to Neyfakh was the big themes he’s preparing to deal with in Back to Blood, his first novel since 2004′s I Am Charlotte Simmons. “My original subject was just immigration, not from any policy point of view, but just curiosity about what the life of recent immigrants is like, and how they feel when they come up against American culture or Americans in general,” Wolfe told the Observer, adding that he was still conducting research trips: “I’m so journalistic about this stuff that I can’t stand winging it. I don’t think anybody’s imagination is even in the same league with what happens in places like that.” There’s also the de rigeur statement about all that new territory he’ll be charting: “When I first told people I had this idea, it was two years ago, and the response at that time was, ‘that’s very interesting.’ But there was never a second question—obviously it bored them to death.”
Obviously, Little, Brown thinks the material might be a bit more exciting than that—to the tune, if New York‘s sources are correct, of a $6-7 million advance.
photo: Richard Burbridge/NY Times (2004)
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