There will never be another Tom Wolfe—that much is indisputable. But, as we here at AIR MAIL discovered over the course of our ongoing search for the winners of the second annual Tom Wolfe Prizes, there are more than a few who have picked up his mantle, diagnosing society’s ailments with a combination of precision and flair.
From the field of reportage, they have chronicled Nigeria’s romance-scam economy, Silicon Valley’s training ground, the modern masculinity crisis, the modern marriage crisis, and psychedelic toads. In fiction, they are no less attuned to the absurdities of the present, taking on 21st-century capitalism, the anxieties of the immigrant community, the false Bohemia of downtown New York, and tech-bro culture.