The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution - by Marc Weingarten, 2005
Marc Weingarten has interviewed many of the major players to provide a startling behind-the-scenes account of the rise and fall of the most revolutionary literary outpouring of the postwar era, set against the backdrop of some of the most turbulent�and significant�years in contemporary American life. These are the stories behind those stories, from Tom Wolfe’s white-suited adventures in the counterculture to Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-addled invention of gonzo to Michael Herr’s redefinition of war reporting in the hell of Vietnam. Weingarten also tells the deeper backstory, recounting the rich and surprising history of the editors and the magazines who made the movement possible, notably the three greatest editors of the era�Harold Hayes at Esquire, Clay Felker at New York, and Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone. And finally Weingarten takes us through the demise of the New Journalists, the result of a combination of hubris, miscalculation, and corporate menacing.
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