With a government that bans books and censors public figures, and artificial intelligence that mimics writers’ voices and steals directly from their work, there are vanishingly few opportunities for writers to feel like “Masters of the Universe.” That is, except for a few blissful hours on Tuesday evening at the Waverly Inn, where Air Mail and Montblanc—the German pen-maker behind Wolfe’s favorite fountain pen, the Meisterstück—presented the first inaugural Tom Wolfe Prizes for Fiction & Reportage.
The Italian novelist Vincenzo Latronico, winner of the fiction prize for his millennial novel, Perfection, was the first to arrive. Hot on his heels and relieved that the nor’easter had subsided, a decidedly writerly crowd flooded in. Among them were Walter Isaacson, Jay McInerney, Amor Towles, Lisa Taddeo, Lili Anolik, and Meghan Daum, the other guest of honor, who won the prize for reportage for The Catastrophe Hour.
