The New Journalism

‘The hell with it . . . let chaos reign . . . louder music, more wine . . . All the old traditions are exhausted and no new one is yet established. All bets are off! The odds are cancelled! It’s anybody’s ballgame . . . ’



Tom Wolfe introduces and exults in his generation’s journalistic talent:



Truman Capote inside the mind of a psychotic killer



Hunter S. Thompson skunk drunk at the Kentucky Derby



Michael Herr dispatching reality from the Vietnam killing fields



Rex Reed giving the star treatment to the ageing Ava Gardner



As well as



Norman Mailer



Joe Eszterhas



Terry Southern



Nicholas Tomalin



George Plimpton



James Mills



Gay Talese



Joan Didion



and many other legends of tape and typewriter telling it like it is from Warhol’s Factory to the White House lawn, from the saddle of a Harley to the toughest football team in the US.



(site Picador)