MAGIC CITY

miami, dissected IN HIS HIGHLY ANTICIPATED NEW NOVEL, BACK TO BLOOD, AIMS HIS LASER FOCUS AT THE ANTICS OF OUR TOWN’S UPPER CRUST. BY BRETT SOKOL

iami, be careful what you wish for. Ever since author Tom Wolfe announced in M2008 that his next novel would be set in— and all about—Miami, locals have eagerly awaited its arrival. The report that publisher Little, Brown had paid $7 million for the manuscript only height- ened the anticipation over a book that promised to do for the Magic City what Wolfe’s era-defining 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities had done for the Big Apple. Never mind that Bonfire was hardly a flattering portrait, or that Wolfe has spent the last five decades of his career—from the ’60s journalism of Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers to the ’90s fiction of —serving up the foibles of the power elite and their would-be challengers alike. On that note, Wolfe’s finally released Back to Blood doesn’t disappoint—unless you’re one of the Miami social climbers merci- lessly lampooned within it. The cast includes, well, everyone. Forget about the melting pot of diversity that our city fathers love to trumpet. The title says it all: “Blood means bloodlines,” Wolfe explains. Indeed, for Wolfe, ethnic identity remains the defining—and dividing— feature of the Miami he’s spent the past four years exploring via regular reporting trips, from his new novel’s Napoleonic Cuban-exile mayor, to its belittled African-American police chief, to its milquetoast Anglo Miami Herald editor. And yes, Ocean Drive magazine and its glossy continued on page 140

Wolfe spent four years taking regular reporting trips to Miami to write Back to Blood. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK SELIGER

138 OCEANDRIVE.COM 140 MAGIC CITY Anders Gyllenhaal. Editor Executive Herald at visit 2009 a during suit, white trademark his in Wolfe,

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I was so wrong!” wrong!” so was I go. could art conceptual as thought far I as art.’ was is that ‘This paper, of piece a on writing artist an simply was 1975 that from a piece remember “I laughs. 1975,”Wolfe of exaggeration an just is “Today fair? Basel provided. artists mian he bask role in the subversive a frisson that socializing Society,” with bohe into to but for seeking churches, from doorway usurped it had believed “a as art using only milieu, art contemporary Painted the Word on attack 1975 his This isn’t new territory for Wolfe: It was the theme of of theme the was It Wolfe: for territory new isn’t This And the difference between 1975 and this month’s Art Art month’s this and 1975 between difference the And It’s part of the art’s post-Warholian theoretical under theoretical post-Warholian ofIt’s art’s the part chuckles. Wolfe it,” of any touch doesn’t [Koons] that important “It’s secret. a Hirst—aren’t Damien as such stars art reigning other pro and Koons of work actually the duce Those who together.” staffers them anonymous put elves “elves”—the his rab has He 45-foot-tall his bits? seen you’ve doesn’t He Perhaps reputation. thing! a of touch terms in and financially both successful who is enormously Jeff Koons, such as artists “no-hands for disdain particular a reserves He , which mocked that period’s patrons for not not for patrons period’s that mocked which , of Art and other Higher emanations Things the amid inhale to eager mud’… boue la de nostalgie Koons, 1986. Rabbit by

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY HECTOR GABINO/EL NUEVO HERALD STAFF (WOLFE AT THE MIAMI HERALD); JEFF KOONS (RABBIT)