BAck to Blood by Tom Wolfe

I mean, sure, he's a bit of a bitch about other writers; and he's apparently a political conservative and that's a turn off for some people. 

But I enjoy the hell out of his stories and have since Bonfire of the Vanities in the 80s. Maybe I'm not a big critic because I read other criticisms that are well written and thoughtful, but I just don't see it that way.

This latest one has a lot in common with that book, as well as the other books he's written since. The same laser journalistic eye exposing the hypocrisy and absurdity of modern American institutions and social milieux; the ego-centric, self-characters veering from insecurity to arrogant confidence in seconds flat; themes of corruption, wealth, poverty, race and power; the everyday power struggles and assertions of dominance we all go through; the same laugh-out-loud comic, almost cartoonish scenes of depravity, lust and insecurity...all told in a rich prose dripping with wit and wordplay.

Here Wolfe applies his eye to the world of billionaire art collectors; Russian mafiosos; Haitian, Cuban and Russian immigrants and the overall racial tensions presided over by ambitious cops and a muscular(and largely Cuban) police force; Jewish retirees; and the city of Miami itself, both it's high-life and it's low-life. And he does it all in typically hilarious fashion in a story centered around earnest Cuban-American cop/body builder/secret detective Nestor Comacho. 

One of the things I like about this book--and indeed about most Tom Wolfe books is how it seems to encroach on my own reality. One minute I'm laughing at these ridiculously macho, ridiculously insecure characters; and the next minute I realize, 'My God, they are just like me.'. 

I'm left wondering...what would an enlightened being seem like in these books? Then I realized that Nestor Comacho, in duty mode, does achieve a sort of...purity of mind...that lifts him above the male ego that so contols him at other times. This purity is something new and rather nice in a Tom Wolfe book. It takes a bit of the edge off of the bitter-if-funny cynicism that I felt did add some unnecessary weight to Charlotte Simmons--the humor got lost a bit in that one.
Criticisms? Oh, I suppose a few bits could have been cut; a few sharply-drawn characters that don't really go anywhere, a subplot that seems profound but then just meanders out. But it all made sense to me. And if the character of the Haitian(or, ahem, French sil vous plait) character doesn't really do much, it made sense to me to show him as a detail in the overall  mosaic of modern, 21st century Miami.

I was really prepared to like this book, but I thought that it's poor sales(one of the biggest commercial flops ever, apparently) would probably mean it was a step below his's other stories. But I loved it. In fact, I found it, ultimately more accessible and (slightly) less cynical overall than some of the novels of the past. And while some people don't like his wordy, witty style, I love it and always have. I highly recommend it. A good story with some profound spot-on observations. The funniest book I've read in a long time.