Two writers I’ve admired for decades — Tom Wolfe and Philip Roth — died this month. I first came to Wolfe through his first novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” which is a perfect time capsule of the status-obsessed 1980s. Over the years, I’ve dipped into his earlier journalism work and have never failed to be entertained by his energetic writing style and punctuation pyrotechnics. Wolfe was also one of our great literary characters, picking fights with other authors and wearing his flamboyant white suits no matter the situation.
My first Roth novel was “Portnoy’s Complaint,” which I think I picked up in a used bookstore during college and read in one sitting. It’s filthy but hilarious. It was then that Roth was getting his second wind and I picked up “American Pastoral,” one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Roth’s unsparing novels delve into topics like lust and death and also the meaning of Jewishness and America. Wolfe and Roth were distinctive voices who leave behind mountains of books I look forward to exploring for a lifetime.