Happy birthday …

… Tom Wolfe: A youthful, octogenarian birthday boy | Books | DW.COM | 01.03.2016. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Despite being educated at Yale and taking a seat in New York high society, in his writing, Wolfe had set his gaze on the problems of class and elitism in America from the beginning. In 1963, the newly established "New York" magazine printed Wolfe's detailed takedown of "The New Yorker" and its editor William Shawn - a magazine that had been (and still is) considered the pinnacle publication of the literary establishment. Wolfe claimed it was for the faux-intellectual, a ruse to make bored suburban housewives who read it feel as though they were on par with the French elite. Thus began a very public exchange of criticism with his contemporaries, including John Updike and Norman Mailer, which continues to this day.