Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers [Paperback]

Tom Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1987

The phrase radical chic was coined by Tom Wolfe in 1970 when Leonard Bernstein gave a party for the Black Panthers at his duplex apartment on Park Avenue. That incongrous scene is re-created here in high fidelity as is another meeting ground between militant minorities and the liberal white establishment.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"What Tom Wolfe has done is create an appallingly funny, cool, small, deflative two-scene social drama about America's biggest, hottest, and most perplexing problem--the confrotnation between Black Rage and White Guilt."--Time magazine

"Wolfe's genius is that he is fair; he puts the Bernstein part in perspective against the background of New York social history. Read it and weep with laughter."--Houston Post

"A sociological classic . . . At Wolfe's hands the socialites get a roasting they will long remember."--Saturday Review

"Tom Wolfe understands the human animal like no sociologist around. He tweaks his reader's every buried though and prejudice. He sees through everything. He is as original and outrageous as ever."--The New York Times

"Uproariously funny and socially perceptive . . . a penetrating dissection of the confusion among the classes and the search for status."--Women's Wear Daily

"Tom Wolfe at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent."--San Franciscio Chronicle

"Absolutely brilliant. One of the finest examples of reporting and social commentary I have read anywhere."--Gay Talese

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

7 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 153 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (September 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374520720
• ISBN-13: 978-0374520724
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Wolfe is the author of more than a dozen books, among them such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just as true today and more appropriate than ever., August 27, 2002

By 

miked99 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (Paperback)

"Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is comprised of two short essays written by Tom Wolfe and first published in book form in 1970. While much has changed over the last three decades in America regarding the topic of race, the essays of this book are just as applicable now as they were when Wolfe wrote them.

"Radical Chic" is the story of a party thrown by Leonard Bernstein to raise money for the Black Panthers; specifically, for their legal defenses. Wolfe lets their own words and actions at this typical party be the objects by which these elite, Manhattanite, "limousine liberals" completely humiliate themselves. The lengths to which the Bernstein crowd goes--from whom they employ to what they wear--to remove anything that could possibly be viewed as "intolerant" is simply comical to almost anyone except for this crowd. As one who currently lives in New York City, this book was hilarious to read since any differences between the crowd Wolfe satirized in 1970 and the Manhattanite left-wing elitists of today, are virtually non-existent. As "Radical Chic" closes, this crowd is sent scrambling to distance themselves from the Panthers, not because the Panthers were anarchist street thugs, but because they are shown to be virulent racists, especially regarding anti-Semitism. Upper class Leftists, scrambling to distance themselves from the anti-Semitic comments of black leaders they once supported politically... my, how things have changed.

While "Radical Chic" is the longer and usually more famous of the two essays, "Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is Wolfe writing at a better, more colorful level than in "Radical Chic", where the essay's subjects do most of the talking. In "Flak Catchers" Wolfe again takes on the topic of angry minorities and their more affluent supporters in the white community. This time, Wolfe uses the racial melting-pot in San Francisco to show the numerous "impoverished" groups uniting to make themselves seen and heard by the local government. Wolfe demonstrates his perspicacity in putting a human face on these groups and objectively showing their personal motives for giving the white government office workers (the Flak Catchers), an occasional shakedown. But here too, Wolfe is not commenting on the minority group nearly as much as he is on the white, middle class, Northern Californians that seek to appease these groups at any cost. His cynical view of these people comes not from disagreement with their wanting to help the less fortunate, but from their complete phoniness, which ultimately blinds them to the acts and words of some nefarious characters.

As Wolfe writes in "Flak Catchers": "You'd turn on the TV, and there would be some dude you had last seen just hanging out on the corner with the porkpie hat scrunched down over his eyes and the toothpick nodding on his lips--and there he was now on the screen, a leader, a 'black spokesman,' with whites in the round-shouldered suits and striped neckties holding microphones up to his mouth and waiting for The Word to fall from his lips."

Exactly.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PantherParty pains pitiful plutocrat, pleases pungent penman, June 28, 2003

By 

Marc Cenedella "www.cenedella.com/stone" (East Village, New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (Paperback)

Tom Wolfe's singular brand of commentary reached it sharp, devastating pinnacle in this biting portrait of that pitiable creature - the wealthy white liberal. With verve, a strong metaphorical flourish, and a ready ability to move the story forward, Wolfe finely details a party that was intended to embody the ethos of an era, and unwittingly did.

This party on January 14, 1970 (Woodstock and the flag on the moon are dissipating euphorium; Altamont is a fresh bruise) brings crafty, radical, violent Black Panthers into the lair of America's great conductor Leonard Bernstein for a fund-raiser.

It's all here: the saccharine philosophizing, the goofy earnestness, the willful suspension of reasoning, even the seeds of the increasingly acrimonious relationship between America's blacks and Jews.

Wolfe adroitly draws the scene for us:

"[Black Panther speaker] Cox seizes the moment: `Our Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, has said if we can't find a meaningful life.. you know... maybe we can have a meaningful death... and one reason the power structure fears the Black Panthers is that they know the Black Panthers are ready to die for what they believe in, and a lot of us have already died.'
Lenny seems like a changed man. He looks up at Cox and says, `When you walk into this house, into this building' - and he gestures vaguely as if to take it all in, the moldings, the sconces, the Roquefort morsels rolled in crushed nuts, the servants, the elevator attendant and the doormen downstairs in their white dickeys, the marble lobby, the brass struts on the marquee out front - "when you walk into this house, you must feel infuriated!'
Cox looks embarrasses. `No, man... I manage to overcome that... That's a personal thing...'...
`Well,' says Lenny, `it makes me mad!'

The self-loathing, the fashionable decrial of one's own self, yet the never quite-so-brave as to deny it. As this is a short, short work, I can't reveal too much more without giving away the entire plotline, which is awfully enjoyable for you to watch unfold.

I will say that this is Tom Wolfe writing at its boldest, full-throated best. Wolfe has a way of fetishizing a particular object and using it to illuminate the differences among his subjects. He does this to great effect here with the "Roquefort morsels rolled in crushed crumbs" mentioned above, and it is a delight to watch this talented polemicist run this device through its paces.

All the blurbs on the back of this book deem this a "sociological" work, which must have been a Word-in-Vogue at the time of its publishing. This is a hell of a lot more interesting than any sociology, and more important in its way too.

Now, let's be clear on what you're getting here - this is basically a long magazine article that even with small book format, generous margins and gutter-sized line spacing only runs to four score and two pages. Hence the need to include the entirely adequate "Mau-mauing the Flak-catchers" to bulk it up to a more decorous triple-digit page count.

Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable, easy-breezy read that you can knock off on a short plane ride. I read it in conjunction with Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House over a weekend, and I'd suggest getting all three.

This is probably Wolfe's best work as a pamphleteer and certainly his most famous. A fine, devious, dramatic work, this little tome will please the lover of politics, culture, gossip or Americana immensely.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Pop-Sociologist's smashing take on race in the late 60's, March 8, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (Paperback)

These are two long essays dealing with Race in America in the late 1960's. Radical Chic is the more famous of the two. Imagine the scene as Leonard Bernstien and his wife throw a cocktail party in their posh Manhattan Apartment with members of the Black Panther Party as the guests of honor. Wolfe was present at this strange event and offers a play by play of how Radical became all the Chic in the New York social scene...briefly. Bernstien's reputation received national tarnish, and Wolfe explains it all in his witty and insightful style. The book takes a snapshot of the late 60's and Wolfe deconstructs it to explain:White Guilt, New York Society, Zeitgeist, Media Frenzy and other assorted Social-Pop phenomena. Radical Chic is a fun read and will explain a lot about how the better half understood the radicalism of the 60's. I actually prefer the lesser known Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Anyone who has ever been involved in interest group politics will howl with laughter as angry minority youths confront pasty white bureaucrats in Oakland in the late 60's. This essay doesn't have the celebrity glamour of Radical Chic, but a lot more people have worked on local race and diversity issues than have made the Manhattan scene with Lenny Bernstien and the like. This essay really explains the purest democratization that was the result of the radical politics of the 60's.