‘The hell with it . . . let chaos reign . . . louder music, more wine . . . All the old traditions are exhausted and no new one is yet established. All bets are off! The odds are cancelled! It’s anybody’s ballgame . . . ’Tom Wolfe introduces and exults in his generation’s journalistic talent:Truman Capote inside the mind of a psychotic killerHunter S. Thompson skunk drunk at the Kentucky DerbyMichael Herr dispatching reality from the Vietnam killing fieldsRex Reed giving the star treatment to the ageing Ava GardnerAs well asNorman MailerJoe EszterhasTerry SouthernNicholas TomalinGeorge PlimptonJames MillsGay TaleseJoan Didionand many other legends of tape and typewriter telling it like it is from Warhol’s Factory to the White House lawn, from the saddle of a Harley to the toughest football team in the US.
