The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff (1979) Tom Wolfe

I'm re-reading The Right Stuff and loving it all over again. This is my second time although I've read the first chapter about seven times.

It's call "The Angels" and it's a perfect piece of writing. It tells the story of a pilot's wife waiting to hear if her husband has or hasn't died in an accident. There are parts that make me choke and my eyes will fill up with water.

Wolfe is the best non-fiction writer I've ever read. It might've been a long time till I read him if I hadn't come across an audio-tape version of his 2000 collection, Hooking Up, for $2.99 at a discount store. So good.

Wolfe himself reads about half of the selections and I could listen to him all day.

The two best stories are "Two Young Men Who Went West", and "my Three Stooges", the second about criticism of his second novel, A Man In Full, and specifically John Updike, John Irving, and Norman Mailer, who all came out against the book.

If you see Hooking Up at the store pick it up. Same with The Right Stuff.