The Pump House Gang by Tom James Wolfe

The Pump House Gang by Tom James Wolfe

A collection of non-fiction essays about the counter-culture of the 1960s that dives deep into the issues that marked the era: female empowerment, increasing freedom around sexuality, vibrant subcultures, and the rise of psychedelic drugs.

In this sprawling work, Wolfe profiles Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and compares him to Jay Gatsby, interviews one of the first women to get breast implants, and hangs out with freewheeling surfers (aka The Pump House Gang).

Tom Wolfe's second collection of essays continues his fieldwork among the thriving anti-establishment subcultures of the 1960s - from La Jolla to London.

Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) was a founding member of the New Journalism movement and the author of modern classics including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, as well as novels like The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. He wrote for The Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, Esquire, and New York magazine as a reporter, and is credited with coining the term The Me Decade. Tom received the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Award, the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Achievement, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Outstanding Contribution to American Literature, among many other awards. He received his B.A. from the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. graduating with honors and a Ph.D. from Washington and Lee University.

at Yale University, where he majored in American studies. He was a New York City resident.