It was smaller than I thought it would be. The display was perhaps the size of a dining room table made of honey wood and fitted with glass cases on top. A sign announcing the exhibit read: “Becoming The Man in the White Suit: The Tom Wolfe Papers.”
My classmate Rivka Hia and I immediately noticed there were a surprising large number of people visiting. We had come to the exhibit after I had stumbled upon its announcement on the New York Public Library (NYPL) website. Having just read several works by Tom Wolfe in my American Non-Fiction class, I shared the exciting news with my professor. Dr. Peters urged our class to visit if we had the chance. After all, this was an exhibit about Tom Wolfe, the illustrious journalist whom we had dedicated several classes to; plus it would count as extra credit.
As we watched the people circulating the exhibit, we noticed many seemed to be huddled around one man, in particular. Leaning over the display case, I noticed he was wearing a white suit. What with Labor Day six months prior, this man’s attire was odd and also familiar. Quickly looking back at the display board that we had seen moments before, we turned back again, looking at the silhouette of the man pictured on the sign. “It couldn’t be…” I thought. We looked at the board, the man, and back at the board again.
It couldn’t seem to be true but indeed it was: we were looking at Tom Wolfe in the flesh.
The phrase “super-marvelous” danced through our minds and lips as we excitedly remembered the repeating phrase from his piece “The Girl of the Year” that we had read and discussed in class, just several weeks prior. The phrase fit perfectly as we watched him hunched over, squinting at one of his manuscripts under the display glass.
We stood across from him, listening to him talking to a NYPL staff member about the exhibit. We heard her say, “We are so happy to hear that you are happy with this exhibit.”
Celebrating the library’s recent acquisition of Mr. Wolfe’s work to the Manuscripts and Archives Division in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the NYPL chose some of the new collection’s best pieces and put up a pop up display honoring a legend and his great contributions to journalism and writing, alike. The exhibit included drafts, drawings, and correspondence of Tom Wolfe and his decades of reporting, including a thank-you note from a shoe company of which Wolfe had been a frequent customer, writing that that they were delighted to hear of his satisfaction of their products; a notebook bearing his neat loopy handwriting with notes of a news story with sentences like: “He always liked walking to the beach” with a line running through the word ‘always’ as if upon rereading his notes he was not sure that that was true or perhaps the sentence did not flow to his liking.
After speaking with a staff member, a woman stepped forward. She held a notebook and a tape recorder. Recognizing the telltale signs of a reporter, we watched in amazement as she began touring the exhibit with the main subject, himself; naturally we hung on to their every word. (I later found out that the woman whose interview we were eavesdropping was named Andrea DenHoeder who reports for The New Yorker.)
We listened to her pointed questions about the pieces displayed, and watched his face crinkle into recognition as he answered. Or not. When asked about a sketch of a man on a sheet of paper littered with Mr. Wolfe’s signatures — numerous designs, over and over, some in all capital letters while others were written in big square letters — the reporter asked for the story behind them. “Where you practicing your signature?” she asked. He paused, thinking, then chuckled lightly and smiled, “I don’t know what I was doing!” We decided to wait out the interview and perhaps, we hoped, we would be allowed ask him some questions of our own.
While we trailed this ‘exclusive’ tour, we noticed that our squealing voices were being amplified as we were standing in the McGraw Rotunda in the the library’s third floor. We stepped aside to calm our hyperventilating selves, and asked a NYPL staff member details about Tom Wolfe’s visit. She introduced herself as Weatherly Stephan, an archivist for the NYPL who had been archiving Mr. Wolfe’s papers since their acquisition in Spring 2013. Asking if this visit was typical and if it was Mr. Wolfe’s practice to visit regularly, she laughed good-naturedly and said that he did not visit his exhibit daily but that this current visit was his second one since the exhibit opened on February 13th.
Delighted to see two students (read: self-proclaimed literature junkies) so interested in Mr. Wolfe’s presence and work, Weatherly offered her services to help arrange a class trip to the archives and examine other papers of Mr. Wolfe’s that were not part of the display. Insert more (somewhat) loud squeals, here. So much for calming down.
We asked if she had known that he was to be visiting on that particular day; she said that she had not, but joked that if she would have known she would have dressed up a bit more for the occasion. I looked down at her dark jeans and simple top, confused. They seemed to be appropriate work clothes. I then noticed that the other library staff member wearing mostly black, pearls, and stiff blazers. When the man in the white suit visits, everyone puts on their best duds.
As Weatherly joined her “better dressed” co-workers at the other side of the rotunda, Rivka and I began to take notice of the other tourists in the room. This proved to be quite entertaining. Watching a man in a lime green puffy winter coat standing a mere twelve inches from Tom Wolfe, we created a game titled, “How Long Do You Think It Will Take Tourist X To Realize That Tom Wolfe Is Standing Right There.”
As Lime Green Puffy Coat man took pictures of the display with just a foot or so in between himself and the the actual Tom Wolfe, Rivka bravely caught his eye and, and while pointing to Mr. Wolfe, she mouthed: “THAT’S TOM WOLFE!” He smiled and responded with excitedly raised eyebrows, “I KNOW!” Large silly grins were exchanged across the display tables.
As Mr. Wolfe finished his interview, we overheard Andrea DenHoeder say, “Let’s go back to the office so we can talk some more.” Having waited patiently for quite some time to speak with Mr. Wolfe, we were nervous about losing this once-in-a-million opportunity. Thankfully, Weatherly was our archive-fairy-godmother as she had directed a NYPL staff member to kindly interrupt his exit for us.
“Mr. Wolfe?” she said, gesturing to us, “These two journalism students have been waiting to speak to you.” Please note that while both Rivka and I are both enthusiastic English majors, our tracks are creative writing and literature, respectively. We decided to let it slide — we couldn’t care less how we were introduced to Tom Wolfe, just that we would meet him.
He looked up, surprised; we were by far the youngest visitors in the room. Yes, we were young but we were stubborn — we had waited nearly an hour to speak with him.
Tom Wolfe’s hair was“super-marvelous” (we echoed the phrase throughout our visit). Smoothed back and bright white, it formed a sloped shape. He was wearing what looked like a copy of the suit that was pictured on the display board. I imagined that he had a whole closet full of them, one after the other, never altering in shade. He paired the bold suite with a white and navy striped shirt, silver heavy-looking cufflinks, and a navy handkerchief bordered in white tucked into his left breast pocket. He smiled, and asked us what college we attend.
“Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women,” I answered in a hushed voice.
I was in a library, after all.
He had not heard me.
I repeated louder and added, “We are currently taking an American non-fiction class and we’ve been doing a unit on New Journalism. We’ve really enjoyed reading your work.”
He thanked us – Tom Wolfe thanked us – and then, as if reading our minds, he began telling us what he “always says to young people who ask for advice about journalism”:
“Leave the building!”
He advised that if you live in a place — “any place” for 30 days, no matter how simple it may seem at first, you’ll find something to write about. “You’d be amazed at what you can find when you really go somewhere,” he added. According to Mr. Wolfe, to live somewhere and watch the people in their day-to-day lives is how you really get your story. He told us that when New Journalism first came about, he was skeptical — “we all were.” The genre had seemed so “new”.“But now I know non-fiction is better,” he concluded with a smile. After thanking him again, I responded, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Wolfe.”
Descending the stairs of the NYPL’s flagship building, Rivka and I reviewed our visit, excited to share the incredible trip with our class the next day. Meeting Tom Wolfe, at his own exhibit no less, has been the most surreal and unique “New York” experience I have had, to date. Though I am hopeful in the future to have more experiences where my education comes to life in surprising ways, I know that this one will forever hold a special sentiment.