Half of this is like holy tangerine-coloured radical electric flashbulb mau-mau intense, on stage, inside out! Radical chic, Bauhaus to your house, chik chik chik, pow pow pow. Don't know that I really rate Wolfe as a journalist - defined by the ability to learn things you don't know and tell you about them, but as a cultural commentator he was maybe the best in America in his day. The other half of this is THE ONlY PEOPLE THAT MATTER ARE RICH THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT MATTER ARE RICH, Wolfe taxonomizing the dress and habits of his own class - New York society people - in a way that doesn't not deserve doing, but should lack for all good-hearted people the satisfaction that it obviously has for him. And he seems really into men who drive powerful machines, in a girlish-crush way. They're always gonna pad a reader with some crap they have copyright on that doesn't fit somewhere else, but the three or four really solid essays make this a good read on balance. Oh, if he'd stop calling young girls "buds" - ew - that'd be good too. ( )

Excellent essays from one of America's greatest writers and social observers. The Purple Decades spans Wolfe's non-fiction best from the 60s and 70s, including the all-time greats 'Radical Chic' and 'Mau-mauing the Flak-Catchers'. It's amazing how relevant these pieces still are today. ( )