Who

The white-suited Wolfe has been a ubiquitous media figure and chronicler of the zeitgeist for over 40 years.

Backstory

Virginia-bred Wolfe earned a doctorate in American Studies from Yale in 1957, before plunging into journalism as a reporter at the Washington Post and New York Herald Tribune. Along with fellow NYC literary fixture Gay Talese, Wolfe became a pioneer of "New Journalism," where literary techniques were used instead of straight reportage. His 1965 collection of articles, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (the title essay came about when he had difficulty completing an assignment for Esquire and his editor simply published Wolfe's notes verbatim), was a bestseller; he went on to write the seminal "non-fiction novels" The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Right Stuff, coining such pervasive phrases as "radical chic" and "good ol' boy" in the process. In 1987, he rocketed to literary stardom with his first work of fiction, The Bonfire of the Vanities, a portrait of money-mad New York in the '80s.

Of note

Wolfe hasn't quite managed to repeat the success of Vanities, a bestseller which netted him $5 million just for the film rights. He took 11 years to finish his second novel, A Man in Full, which finally came out in 1998 to mixed reviews; his third novel, 2004's I Am Charlotte Simmons—a depiction of 21st-century college life and sexual mores reportedly based on research the author conducted by hanging out various colleges and frat parties—had a lack-luster reception and won the 2004 Literary Review "Bad Sex Award" for a passage with the line "Slither slither slither slither went the tongue…" Wolfe's next novel, the Miami-set Back to Blood, will be published in 2009 by Little, Brown, where he defected after his longtime publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux refused to meet his demand for a minimum $5 million advance. Wolfe also pens the occasional magazine piece: He returned to the terrain he covered in Bonfire with an acidic cover story about hedge fund managers for Portfolio's debut issue in 2007.

Grudge

In 1998, John Updike excoriated Wolfe's novel A Man in Full in the New Yorker, calling it "entertainment, not literature." The review touched off a public and lengthy spat with Wolfe on one side and Updike, the late Norman Mailer, and John Irving—whom Wolfe referred to as "My Three Stooges"—on the other. Another person who won't be sending Wolfe a Christmas card any time soon: Real estate developer Aby Rosen, who tussled with Wolfe in 2006 over his plan to erect a 30-story apartment building a few blocks from Wolfe's abode. The author waged a public battle against Rosen and the Landmark Preservation Commission (which he called "a bureau of the walking dead") and was ultimately successful in defeating the proposal. Rosen told a reporter that Wolfe should "stick to writing books" and suggested the author was anti-Semitic, conveniently ignoring the fact that Wolfe's wife is Jewish.

The look

Wolfe's sartorial trademark is an immaculate white suit, often paired with a white homburg.

Soundbite

Wolfe has long leaned to the right, which hasn't endeared him to New York's liberal intelligentsia. "I was at a dinner party in New York and when everyone was wondering what to do about Bush I suggested they might do like me and vote for him. There was silence around the table, as if I'd said 'By the way, I haven't mentioned this before, but I'm a child molester.'"

Personal

Wolfe has been married to Sheila Berger since 1978. Daughter Alexandra has followed in daddy's footsteps: Her articles have appeared in New York magazine and she's currently a staff writer at Portfolio. He also has a son, Tommy, a recent graduate of Trinity College. The couple live on East 79th Street, in the same building as Larry Fink.

True story

Wolfe has had a long friendship with attorney Ed Hayes; it was Hayes who served as the inspiration for the thuggish lawyer Tommy Killian in Bonfire of the Vanities. Wolfe, in turn, wrote an introduction for Hayes's autobiography.