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Back to Blood

3.18 of 5 stars 3.18 · rating details · 2,758 ratings · 526 reviews

As a police launch speeds across Miami’s Biscayne Bay—with officer Nestor Camacho on board—Tom Wolfe is off and running. Into the feverous landscape of the city, he introduces the Cuban mayor, the black police chief, a wanna-go-muckraking young journalist and his Yale-marinated editor; an Anglo sex-addiction psychiatrist and his Latina nurse by day, loin lock by night-unti...more

Hardcover, 720 pages

Published October 23rd 2012 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 2012)

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Nov 24, 2012 Victor Carson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you liked Bonfire of the Vanities, you will probably like Back to Blood, as well. I like both books: the first set in New York City and the second in Miami. Both demonstrate the author's inside knowledge of the city, the police, the criminal justice system, and the racial and class tension. If you were not offended by the author's take on race relations in New York City back in the 1970s, you may not be offended by his take on the race relations in Miami in the current era. Back to Blood is v...more

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May 11, 2013 David Prybil rated it 2 of 5 stars

First off, I am a HUGE fan of Tom Wolfe. I have read everything he has ever written. I was willing to write off CHARLOTTE SIMMONS as an anomaly, a mistake in judgment. The material simply wasn't a good fit for him. BACK TO BLOOD sounded like it was right in his wheelhouse. I was stoked. This was going to be a capstone to his amazing career.

It's not.

While you can see why he was attracted to the milieu, and there are flashes of his usual incisiveness and wit, the overall sense here is of a missed...more

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May 08, 2013 Eugene Slaven rated it 2 of 5 stars

There are glimpses of trademark Wolfe in this otherwise mediocre novel marred by a disjointed narrative and painfully inauthentic dialogue: the intersecting sub plots; the bold social commentary, such as Wolfe's theory on why journalists tend to be politically liberal; the author's willingness to eschew political correctness in ridiculing uncouth elements of young male African American culture through a Haitian father concerned about the culture's harmful influence on his teenage son.

Then there...more There are glimpses of trademark Wolfe in this otherwise mediocre novel marred by a disjointed narrative and painfully inauthentic dialogue: the intersecting sub plots; the bold social commentary, such as Wolfe's theory on why journalists tend to be politically liberal; the author's willingness to eschew political correctness in ridiculing uncouth elements of young male African American culture through a Haitian father concerned about the culture's harmful influence on his teenage son.

Then there is Tom Wolfe's skewering of abstract "art," which I found particularly satisfying.

Beyond the glimpses, however, Back to Blood is entirely disappointing--even more so than the critically panned I am Charlotte Simmons.

The story has potential, and at times feels like it's going to suck you in, but Wolfe fails to sustain interest. Instead of twists and unexpected surprises, there are forced serendipitous encounters and clumsily connected subplots.

Yet the main problem with Back to Blood is not the story, which is at least mildly entertaining. It is Tom Wolfe's writing style. One of his weaknesses as a writer has always been his propensity to tell, rather than show. In this latest novel, this weakness is magnified and taken to a new extreme, as Tom Wolfe describes in superfluous detail every emotion felt by his characters. The result is forced and lacking artistic nuance.

Most importantly, Wolfe's dialogue is inauthentic, at times laughably so. The characters non-ironically use outdated words and phrases like "it's the tops" and "gee," which makes one wonder if the old master is not in touch with the contemporary lexicon. It would have helped Tom Wolfe to watch an episode of "The Wire" to get an idea of how cops actually talk. We know he does meticulous, firsthand research before delving into a novel, and that he no doubt talked to Miami police officers before starting on this project. Still, he fails to capture contemporary vernacular.

Wolfe's incessant use of "loins" to denote sexual arousal is not just antiquated, it's cringe-worthy. Here, his editors must share responsibility for not cautioning Wolfe that "loins" should only be used ironically, which is to say not used in a Tom Wolfe novel.

Wolfe's language problems transcend English. A Russian character exclaims "oh govno," "oh govno" over and over again during a sexual encounter. "Oh govno" literally means "oh s***," which makes contextual sense in English. But in Russian, "oh govno" "oh govno" is not an expression one uses when sexually aroused. It's astounding that Wolfe and his editors thought that the literal translation of "s***" would have the equivalent idiomatic meaning in Russian.

Finally, beyond the anti-climactic story and the inauthentic dialogue, Wolfe's characters are just not believable. The clearest example of this is Magdalena, a psychiatric nurse, who, as Wolfe reminds us over and over again, is terribly unsophisticated. In fact, she is so unsophisticated that she doesn't know what a "metaphor" is. Really? A psychiatric nurse and a native English speaker has never heard of a metaphor? This is not believable, and it is perhaps the unintended consequence of Wolfe's habit to tell too much at the expense of artful subtlety.(less)

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Apr 08, 2013 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you read and enjoyed "Bonfire of Vanities" and/or "I Am Charlotte Simms", chances are you will like this one too. If not, be prepared: it is Tom Wolfe at his wackiest. What I like about him is that he is politically incorrect and ridicules every class and race of people in this big melting pot of ours, and I think he does it superbly. There is bitter truth in all his portrayals. And since this story is set in Miami, he has a lot of ammunition.

What I don't like is his long involved babbling de...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Ware rated it 5 of 5 stars

When my mother died twenty one years ago, a Herald reporter, assigned to write her obituary, asked me if she resented all the changes that had come to Miami during the forty plus years she had lived in South Florida. My mother, having once quit the Junior League when asked to make a speech about "holding the color line", might have cancelled her subscription to the paper on the spot. She loved Miami and everything it had become. She watched in wonderment as the nouveau riche socialites invaded t...more When my mother died twenty one years ago, a Herald reporter, assigned to write her obituary, asked me if she resented all the changes that had come to Miami during the forty plus years she had lived in South Florida. My mother, having once quit the Junior League when asked to make a speech about "holding the color line", might have cancelled her subscription to the paper on the spot. She loved Miami and everything it had become. She watched in wonderment as the nouveau riche socialites invaded the emerging art community, of which as a member of the Art In Public Places Trust, she was a key player. Their never-ending social climbing and self-promoting "philanthropy" was the subject of many cocktail hour stories in my house.

So this is a very personal book for me. It is about the community Miami in which I grew up, and the cultural and economic forces which make the former sleepy Southern outpost, full of Georgians like my parents into a world-class city. Money and culture define the town-the old guard WASPs (like me), the first, second and third waves of Cuban migration, the Haitians, and now the Russians some of whom are more brutal than the Columbian cowboys of thirty years ago who once staged a gun battle on the Palmetto Expressway.

But it is money that truly defines this place as Tom Wolfe so aptly describes. Social climbing has never gone away, and if you want to be a crook around here, the surest way to succeed and escape the interest of law enforcement and the press is to spread cash around and get your name on every cultural institution in sight.

Wolfe may be the best chronicler of urban life in the modern era. Bonfire of the Vanities nails New York. A Man in Full skewers Atlanta. And now Back to Blood reveals Miami.

Not that many years ago, the Miami tourism bureau offered a poster of the back of a model, clad only with mask, snorkel and the skimpy bottom half of a bikini with the tag line "Miami. See It Like a Native." The model, who had been a secretary in a law firm where I was practicing, was not quite as exciting in real life as she was plastered in airports around the world.(less)

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Apr 03, 2013 Tjerk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

'Als je Miami echt wilt begrijpen, moet je allereerst één ding begrijpen. In Miami haat iedereen iedereen.' Deze woorden, die de Cubaanse burgemeester de zwarte korpschef toevertrouwt, geven de kern weer van het leven in Miami – of 'Mee-ah-mee', zoals de Cubanen zeggen –, een stad waar meer dan 50 procent van de bevolking uit recente immigranten bestaat: immigranten uit de afgelopen vijftig jaar. Waar Tom Wolfe in 'Het vreugdevuur der ijdelheden' (1987) en 'Ik ben Charlotte Simmons' (2004) op we...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Thomas Holbrook rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I have known of Tom Wolfe’s reputation for many years. For whatever reason, I had never read one of his novels until this one became available during a Christmas sale on the site of one of my dealers. Perhaps I need to read one of Mr. Wolfe’s previous novels that helped to create his reputation. After reading this one, I am not at all clear how he has come to be as well respected as a novelist. I found this work to be overly wordy, weakly plotted, characters that were not well developed and the...more I have known of Tom Wolfe’s reputation for many years. For whatever reason, I had never read one of his novels until this one became available during a Christmas sale on the site of one of my dealers. Perhaps I need to read one of Mr. Wolfe’s previous novels that helped to create his reputation. After reading this one, I am not at all clear how he has come to be as well respected as a novelist. I found this work to be overly wordy, weakly plotted, characters that were not well developed and the story was left with little resolution.
The city of Miami has become a cultural plethora in recent decades. Peoples from Haiti, Cuba, Central and South America, multiple African nations, Russia and all regions of the United States have relocated to the beauty, opportunity and climate that are Miami. Each of these groups is interested in “staying with blood” rather than mingling with other cultures. While this behavior maintains (and further develops) one’s cultural identity, it can also create a climate of suspicion, paranoia and hostility. The reader is introduced quickly into this world in the early pages of this novel.
Nestor Camacho is a 25-year-old police officer who is in his first weeks as a part Miami Police Department’s elite Marine Patrol when he is required to remove a man who is sitting atop the 70-foot main mast of a yacht in a marina. This individual, it is later learned, is a Cuban refugee who would be granted asylum immediately upon his setting foot on American dry land. If a Cuban refugee is apprehended before reaching land, he/she is returned to Cuba. When Nestor rescues this individual just before he falls from his tall perch (in one of the most bizarre manners imaginable), he his hailed by his fellow police officers as a hero and totally disowned by his family and the Cuban community. His girlfriend, Magdelena, dumps him so she can openly date her boss, Norman Lewis, a prominent Miami Psychiatrist who specializes in treating Pornography Addiction, an ailment he does not believe exists but who appears to be suffering with that affliction. His “prize” patient is Maurice Fleischmann, a billionaire who makes introduction of Dr. Lewis to the wealthier class of the Miami community. One of those introductions is to Sergei Korolyov, an obscenely rich Russian “oligarch” whose “generosity” has provided Miami with its first world class art attraction. How all of these characters are connected is an imaginative stretch for the reader but it is also the core of the book.
This book could have been much better had it been better edited. The author seems to go on the theory of, “Why use one word when five would suffice?” and goes to extremes in describing minor elements (such as listing ten different Solo Cup colors one of the characters saw on a yacht and repeatedly “echoing” mixed in conversations) that cause the book to be frustratingly slow and serve no other apparent purpose. The book would have been better had it been better edited but Mr. Wolfe would have needed to tighten the plot dramatically for the book to be a good read. The plot has little focus and the resolution is far too open-ended as well as having the feel of the author (finally) finding a place to stop writing.
I was disappointed in my first visit with this author. I would need to be convinced to read another of his works.
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Feb 27, 2013 Todd Zywicki rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. I think I liked it the best since Bonfire of the Vanities, although I did like Man in Full and I Am Charlotte Simmons as well.

Yet a different slice of America here, as with his other books. What I took Wolfe to be discussing here was the age-old questions of the assimilation of new immigrants into America and the struggles that they go through as they seek to reconcile their new lives in America with their old lives they leave behind. America is known (correctly in my...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Eric rated it 1 of 5 stars

Tom Wolfe's new novel, Back to Blood, opens with a bravura prologue that seems to promise the sharp-witted, delightfully overblown Tom Wolfe novel we've been awaiting. A Yalie and Wolfe stand-in named Edward T. Topping IV ("White Anglo-Saxon Protestant to the maximum, to the point of satire") has just moved from respectable Chicago to steamy South Florida to take over as editor in chief of the Miami Herald. On a night out with his equally WASPy wife, Mac, the couple gets slapped in their prim-an...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Robert Olsen rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's hard to figure why Tom Wolfe's "Back to Blood" made so many critics' favorites lists in 2012. Faulkner or Balzac, this author is not. His latest novel, in fact, is bloated, campy, arch, and mostly contemptuous of a series of stock characters. (How can a reader be expected to warm to characters Wolfe himself plainly finds lacking?) As social history, it resembles the reality television series ("Masters of the Univ--", uh, "Masters of Disasters") Wolfe dissects and parodies at one point -- un...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Mikey B. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Spoilers Within

At the outset I should state that I am a fan of Tom Wolfe. His stories have abundant energy and explore many different layers of society (some of them quite seamy – so the readers of this book beware!). If you have liked his past works “Back To Blood” will appeal to you. It’s not as claustrophobic as “I am Charlotte Simmons” and it approaches “The Bonfire of the Vanities” for satire. And the main theme in any novel of Tom Wolfe is “downfall” – there is plenty of that in “Back To...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Alan Kaplan rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you have ever read The Right Stuff, then you are a fan of Tom Wolfe. The Right Stuff is one of the best books that I have ever read. Wolfe turned Chuck Yeager into an American folk hero. If you are an Atlantan, you read A Man in Full. A Man in Full was a good book, not a great book about Atlanta and its environs.
Wolfe's lastest book, Back to Blood, is Wolfe's irreverent take on Miami with all of its warts and racial undertones. Like A Man in Full, Wolfe is an incredible observer of all that...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Nancy Brisson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Tom Wolfe takes me to places I would never find myself in even though Tom Wolfe and I are contemporaries, sort of. He travels with the movers and shakers, with the well-off and the young strivers. In the worlds he describes for us, people don’t sit at home and watch TV. They dress up, they go places and sometimes they go to the wrong places or they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first novel by Tom Wolfe that I read was The Bonfire of the Vanities about a hit and run accident by a...more Tom Wolfe takes me to places I would never find myself in even though Tom Wolfe and I are contemporaries, sort of. He travels with the movers and shakers, with the well-off and the young strivers. In the worlds he describes for us, people don’t sit at home and watch TV. They dress up, they go places and sometimes they go to the wrong places or they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first novel by Tom Wolfe that I read was The Bonfire of the Vanities about a hit and run accident by a wealthy man on an expressway ramp in a not-so-wealthy neighborhood in NYC. Interesting and way more complex than this very brief description, this book is also quite edgy.

His most recent novel, Back to Blood, is just as contemporary, but it is set in Miami. Miami gives greater scope as Tom Wolfe mixes social and ethnic groups in the heat and sprawl of the diverse Miami neighborhoods. We begin with Nestor Comacho and Magdalena, both Cubans, and with Nestor’s fellow police officers in the Marine Patrol. Nestor, even though he is distracted by his love for Magdalena who has been acting cool lately, has a good head on his shoulders and, although he is a small guy, he is buff and powerful. He really wants to be a good policeman, but most of his fellow policemen are Anglos. Nestor does the most heroic things and they all turn out badly. He is always getting in trouble with one ethnic group or another. He gets on the wrong side of his own Cuban people first and next he gets on the wrong side of the African American community. He loses Magdalena, who is following her own opportunities to climb the social ladder, with as little luck as Nestor. She is able to see through people, but still manages to complicate her life.

Mr. Wolfe also introduces us, and Nestor, to the Lantier family, members of the Haitian population of Miami, a refined family with a father who is a Professor of French and Creole (against his will). These are light-skinned Haitians and papa likes to make his superiority very clear. His son is hanging with the gang bangers at the local high school so he won’t get beat up, and his beautiful, white-skinned daughter Ghislaine is hanging with the socialites who do charity work with children in poor neighborhoods. When Nestor busts a crack dealer, Ghislaine just happens to be at her first assignment. Once again his heroism does not affect his career the way it should. But he does meet Ghislaine.

We also have crazy Russians, art nuts, a Columbus Day regatta which turns into a pornographic romp, a psychiatrist who treats wealthy people who are addicted to porn, a Cuban mayor and an African American Police Chief who are often at odds and two Yalie journalists from different generations. We travel from rich neighborhoods to poor neighborhoods to Cuban, to Haitian, to Russian neighborhoods, to the old folks in the Assisted Living Facility and all of the characters we meet get all mixed up in each other’s lives. It’s sexy, it’s hot, it’s bright and it’s intoxicating. If you are someone who likes sincere and warm this will not be your cup of tea, but if you like to hang out on the wild side but with the danger once removed, if you like your coffee Cuban-style, rich and sweet, you will most likely enjoy Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe.

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Jan 02, 2013 Benjaminxjackson rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Back To Blood Tom Wolfe again makes and in-depth study of a city and a culture while all the time exploring the idea of what it means to be a man. In Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full he looked at this idea from the perspective of Wall Street and Harlem and from real estate development and prisons, respectively.

Here Wolfe tackles Miami and its confluence of cultures. This time it is mostly from the perspective of a nurse and a cop. His main characters are working class people who bru...more In Back To Blood Tom Wolfe again makes and in-depth study of a city and a culture while all the time exploring the idea of what it means to be a man. In Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full he looked at this idea from the perspective of Wall Street and Harlem and from real estate development and prisons, respectively.

Here Wolfe tackles Miami and its confluence of cultures. This time it is mostly from the perspective of a nurse and a cop. His main characters are working class people who brush up against and alter the upper echelons of the city. While the characters were engaging, Wolfe's depictions of them as uneducated, or perhaps under-educated, sometimes seems a little over-emphasized, and a bit incongruous. At one point his nurse does not know the words 'monograph' or 'treatise', but knows 'hypomanic' and thinks about 'decephalized larvae.' She also doesn't know what a logotherapist is despite being a psychiatric nurse. It is forgiveable, but a bit of an oversight in the writing. There are similar issues with the cop.

Wolfe's writing, however, remians as strong as ever. I find that his prose carries me along and is easy to read. Wolfe plays with punctuation to show where characters are thinking and having an internal dialogue versus speaking out loud. I liked the offset. He does some odd repetitions of words to emphasize points. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is jarring. There may also have been one sub-plot too many. But overall, the writing is great.

His exploration of the Cuban, Russian, and Haitian communities is interesting, and knowing Wolfe's reputation for research, probably based largely in fact. Of course, he also explores the cop subculture, which reliably appears in his novels.

One of the interesting themes that emerges from Wolfe's works is that despite cultural differences and location changes, there are constant threads in human, and especialy masculine, behavior. It is hard to read his works without thinking about the interactions and power plays that we see every day.

I would recommend this book to people who like Tom Wolfe's other works, people who are interested in Miami, Cubans in America, and in questions about what it means to be a man in modern society. (less)

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Dec 28, 2012 Susan Tunis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Old tricks still the best tricks?

While I was reading Back to Blood, I happened to mention to a friend that it was the first I’d read from Wolfe since The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test decades prior. He was astounded that I’d never read Bonfire of the Vanities, but I was barely out of high school when it was published. And let’s face it; Mr. Wolfe hasn’t exactly been prolific in his fiction output in recent years. So, basically, I came to this novel with very fresh eyes and few expectations. And yo...more Old tricks still the best tricks?

While I was reading Back to Blood, I happened to mention to a friend that it was the first I’d read from Wolfe since The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test decades prior. He was astounded that I’d never read Bonfire of the Vanities, but I was barely out of high school when it was published. And let’s face it; Mr. Wolfe hasn’t exactly been prolific in his fiction output in recent years. So, basically, I came to this novel with very fresh eyes and few expectations. And you know what? I really loved it. But I think much of what I loved about this book is what turned off many readers. Namely, the unusual use of language within the text—but we’ll get back to that later.

Back to Blood primarily revolves around a first-generation Cuban-American cop named Nestor Camancho, who inadvertently gets embroiled in Miami’s volatile racial and ethnic politics. Early in the novel, the acrobatic arrest of an endangered Cuban asylum-seeker makes him a front-page hero for white Miami and a pariah in his own Cuban community. Wolfe documents the racial tensions of the city at large, as well as the tensions between the black and Cuban officers on the police force, and the struggle of this overwhelmingly immigrant city between culture and assimilation. Camancho becomes a pawn in a much larger game, all while trying to navigate the perils and pressures of his own familial, community, and romantic relationships.

One of the reasons I was so interested in reading this novel is that I have been considering relocating to Miami. (I know, I know, my friends are threatening to stage an intervention.) Well, Back to Blood did not encourage me. It’s a scathing satirical look at the city. With the exception of Nestor, the vast majority of the characters are fairly reprehensible—but it was funny. A perfect example of this is the character of Dr. Norman Lewis, a self-aggrandizing psychiatrist of dubious ethics and talent. The man is a jack-ass. He’s a horrible human being. But Wolfe’s merciless skewering did have me chuckling. Likewise, a scene set in the midst of filming a reality television show. Wolfe is highlighting the absurdity and vulgarity not only of this one American city, but of our broader culture. It’s not a pretty picture.

I was less interested and invested in the novel’s characters and the story being told than I was in the social observations and, as noted above, the language being used. I have heard from others that Wolfe is using some of his same old tricks, but these are new tricks to me, and I found the writing to be fresh, creative, and somewhat exhilarating. While some of the prose was conventional (but always interesting), other sections were almost… musical. Or, perhaps, like something you might hear at a poetry slam. (Or an onomatopoetry slam, with all the smacks, buzzes, and bangs!) An example:

“…He reached into the bag from Ricky’s—pastelitos!—and took out a moon of beef pastelito wrapped in wax paper… A little bit of Heaven!... tasted exactly the way he hoped it would… Pastelitos! A little flake of the baked filo dough fell… little flakes of it fell if you picked up a pastelito… little flakes fell on his clothes… upon the Camaro’s reupholstered seats… Far from annoying him, the gentle doughfall in the stillness of 7:30a.m. on a Saturday morning was a little bit of Heaven, too… made Nestor think of home, childhood delights, sunny Hialeah, a cozy casita… soft, fluffy clouds of love and affection… and protection. Gently, gently the flakes were wafted about by the white-noise zephyrs that blew out from the air conditioner vents… Nestor could feel the terrible tension draining out draining out draining out, and he drank some more coffee… ineffable sweetness—and how warm the cup and the plastic top had kept it!... and he ate some more moons of pastelito, and the flakes fell ever so gently and tumbled about in the zephyrs, and he found himself… lifting the little lever on the side of the seat and letting his own weight take it back to a twenty-degree incline…”

Let me stress that the entire 720-page novel is not written in that manner. And, of course, I can see that this is not for everybody. But somehow the rhythms of the language really worked for me. And for a novel of that length, I have to say that the pages flew past. Mr. Wolfe may be an old dog using his same old bag of tricks, but there will always be young pups for whom they are new. I have already purchased a copy of Bonfire of the Vanities. I’ve got catching up to do.(less)

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Dec 18, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

The fourth of his recent string of fiction and it continues his style of in-your-face fictionalizing of how we currently live in the 21st century. At least in Miami Beach. The first chapter sets the pace for the entire book, with the main character zooming across Biscayne Bay. Every 8th word being SMACK, as the speed-boat slams into the azure blue sunlit water. Add a Russian art-swindling oligarch, the riotous communities of Overtown and Liberty City, Art Basel Miami Beach, a svelte Cuban nurse...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Jonathan Tomes rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have read reviews of Tom Wolfe’s new novel Back to Blood that have been all over the place. One reviewer called it “a shrewd, riling, and exciting tale of a volatile, divisive, sun-seared city where ‘everybody hates everybody.’” Another went so far as to call it “pure bile.” There is certainly some bile in there as Mr. Wolfe exposes the foibles of just about every socioeconomic and ethnic group in today’s Miami. And the reviews that criticize the book as being hard to read are not altogether w...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Miami police officer Nestor Camacho is conflicted. He wants to be a good cop and have the respect of his family, friends and colleagues. But how can he be a good cop when what is good changes with the whims of some ethnic group or committee or another? There are the Cubans, his own heritage. Then there are the Haitians, the Russians, blacks, police, politicians, yentas, psychiatrists, whores, a dangling man, gangs, hoaxers, porn addiction and porn celebration, phonies, druggies, fakers, leggy wo...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Abby rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

At 700 pages, this book was way too long. Tom Wolfe uses this novel as a forum to express his opinions on everything from race relations to women's fashion to current exercise and fitness trends. Some of the descriptions were amusing; but more often, they seemed out-of-touch. (For example, if you were writing a novel about the diversity of the Cuban-American diaspora in Miami, why would you focus exclusively on the denizens of Hialeah when there are so many other local communities with sizable C...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Fred R rated it 3 of 5 stars

Is Wolfe a good writer? It's an interesting question. Certainly (as he would be the first to tell us) he's more in touch with reality than the vast majority of his competitors. And his sociological interpretive lense which reduces human behavior to status competition is about as accurate as a reductive schema can get. However, he is too doctrinaire in its application. What's interesting about people is the fluff they build on top of their naked power struggles. It is in life extremely rare to me...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tom Wolfe's latest novel follows Miami Police Officer Nestor Camacho as he navigates the minefield of social and political pressures in modern-day Miami. Through a series of inter-related (mis)adventures the young Cuban-American cop finds himself an outcast; suddenly at odds with nearly every sub-group jockeying for power in southern Florida. Oh, and his girlfriend Magdalena; the love of his life, has dumped him.

This is the foundation on which Wolfe brings today's Miami life. In Back to Blood Wo...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Richard Sutton rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've been a Wolfe fan since the 1960s. In BtoB, the author displays a wonderful condensation of his skills. Perhaps like good wine, age improves storytellers. I can't imagine a more engaging, enjoyable romp through the craziness of the colliding ethnicities and cultures of Miami. His characters are easily accessible. Folks you probably know. Their motivations may be convoluted and their accents a struggle, but at no time during my time with this book, despite some really creative situations, did...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Dave Ward rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe (Little, Brown & Co. 2012)(Fiction) is the brand-new work by Tom Wolfe. Like his string of novels dating back from "The Bonfire of the Vanities" through "A Man In Full" to "My Name Is Charlotte Simmons," this volume takes aim at selected communities and then flays them bare. In "Back to Blood," Wolfe takes aim at the city and the culture of Miami. Wolfe portrays Miami as the melting pot that it is; the protagonist is a twenty-five year old Cuban police officer who...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wolfe is a chronicler of the times we live in and if this book is a mirror of our age, it has cracked and we are in decline. It does give a fascinating picture of Miami and the different cultures that converge there. Loved his take on the Art culture there and now and then the glorious prose that made his writing so unique shown thru but the subject matter was so filthy at times, well sometimes felt like I needed a shower after the bacchanal described at the regatta.
I do Love Tom Wolfe but I did...more

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Nov 03, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, humour, crime

Miami gets the tom Wolfe treatment in the same way that New York did in Bonfire and Atlanta did (to a lesser extent) in A Man in Full. I can't say that I know Miami, but I also can't say I know Miami much better after reading this book. Much as I admire and like Tom Wolfe, I was reminded an awful lot of another Floridian author, Carl Hiassen, as I read Back to Blood. Except that Hiassen doesn't have to live up to being A Novelist and just gets on with his plot. Wolfe, however, carries the burden...more Miami gets the tom Wolfe treatment in the same way that New York did in Bonfire and Atlanta did (to a lesser extent) in A Man in Full. I can't say that I know Miami, but I also can't say I know Miami much better after reading this book. Much as I admire and like Tom Wolfe, I was reminded an awful lot of another Floridian author, Carl Hiassen, as I read Back to Blood. Except that Hiassen doesn't have to live up to being A Novelist and just gets on with his plot. Wolfe, however, carries the burden of being An Important American Writer, and I felt it showed in this novel. He tries to insert little stylistic twists into his narrative that seemed a bit forced and which ultimately became irritating as the book progressed. Frustratingly, I could see no need for this as Wolfe can write as gripping a story as anyone without any need for tricky prose. The opening scenes of Back to Blood testify to this, with a set piece that is imaginative, original and amusing, catapulting you into the novel with one swoop.
Once you're caught, Wolfe pulls you into his Miami world. As in many of his novels, he's peopled it with a variety of larger than life characters but, I have to say, none are too convincing. I kept getting the feeling, if anything, that Miami was NOT like Wolfe portrays it. This was a WASP's view and, as he demonstrated in Bonfire of the Vanities, that's a world he knows inside out. But what does Tom Wolfe know of how a Hiatian or a Cuban views the world of South Florida? He failed to convince me that he knew much, really, and he also failed to convince me that he could write with any authority about how young people see the world either. Whichever character's voice he chose to narrate a scene, the voice of Tom Wolfe tended to drown it out. Resultantly, some of his observations seemed to me borderline racist, sexist or ageist, despite the comments being "voiced" by a character who might harbour such a view. The tone of the voice is always Wolfe's.
Saying all that.....I was pretty much hooked into the book and its seven hundred or so pages flew past quickly. I can forgive Wolfe a lot because he just writes so well, and I didn't stop to think too much about what was happening as I was more interested in seeing how the plot panned out. When I finished the book, one of my first thoughts was that I just couldn't have spent ten quid for as much entertainment anywhere else. I suppose that sums up this novel for me - sheer entertainment. It's not the Great American Novel that many might be waiting for Wolfe to write, it doesn't capture the "zeitgeist" that Wolfe is often famous for and, being honest, it's a bit of a throwaway, in that I doubt I'll return to read it in future. But, of the fifty or sixty books I'll have read this year, Back to Blood will be in the "Top Three", and I can't give a much better recommendation than that.
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May 14, 2013 Patrick is currently reading it

From the very start of the book, Wolfe showcases his signature of competition between men and to be accepted by a fraternity and the preening of the alpha male towards the female of his choice as well as cat fights between females.

In his prologue, Wolfe asks whether having a Multi-cultural society with pockets un-Americanized immigrants is worth the inevitable friction that it causes such as the clash b/w WASP an Cubans who apparently own Miami b/c of the lax immigration policy we have for them...more From the very start of the book, Wolfe showcases his signature of competition between men and to be accepted by a fraternity and the preening of the alpha male towards the female of his choice as well as cat fights between females.

In his prologue, Wolfe asks whether having a Multi-cultural society with pockets un-Americanized immigrants is worth the inevitable friction that it causes such as the clash b/w WASP an Cubans who apparently own Miami b/c of the lax immigration policy we have for them due to being political refugees of Castro's communist regime. It also makes one wonder whether a Ted Cruz or a Marco Rubio can understand illegal immigration that other latino's face since the US policy for Cubans are different in that they get automatic political asylum when they land on US soil. No wonder other Latino's do not consider Cubans like them in the immigration sphere.

Furthermore with the decreasing importance of religion in Americans lives, Wolfe seem to suggest that race will play a larger role in creating an us vs them mentality. The new WASP has a secular bent in creating absolute secular morality that has no religious basis. The ethnic category of Latino/Hispanics were created by Americans to describe anyone who comes from our southern borders.

To survive any country as an immigrant, one has to know the language of the adopted country. This is the reason that despite the ethnic enclaves prevalent in the US, immigrants start speaking English and through their proficiency begin to think like Americans.

Anti-Castro Cubans really vilify immigration officials who deport Cubans back to Cuba. I wonder if this occurs to Mexican-American border patrol officers too or is it just unique to Cubans. Despite Cuban's not liking Castro communist country, I think the US embargo of Cuba is largely an anachronistic embargo since its patron USSR has dissolved. Nestor had a choice of pleasing the law enforcement by apprehending the Cuban immigrant or to appease Cuban activists by saying no to his Anglo commanding officer. He rightly chose his job and felt accepted by Miami law enforcement community which he was happy about.

Magdelena wanted independence from her mother; after all, she is a 24 yrs old nurse who makes her own money. But in Cuban culture, people move away from their family while they are single only if they want to hide something or did something shameful. The most prominent example of this phenomenon is Marco Rubio living at his parental home until he married despite being a lawyer. After Magdelena's fight against her mother when she ridiculed her mother's belief, she was determined to make it in the world with her good looks and her nerves of steel.

Like Filipinos, when someone asks about family history, it is to ascertain what social class one belongs to. Magdelena's mother believed in Santaria which Cubans allows a way to fold nativist folklore religion into the Catholic church by appropriating the saints in place of local gods. (less)

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Apr 03, 2013 Leftbanker rated it 2 of 5 stars

Call it “Bonfire of the Vanities South“, yet another treatise (monograph?) on status and sex, his fourth now in the series and each one with fewer insights and with less to say. So Wolfe is back with long passages of description in which he often commits the mortal sin of being boring, of dragging on a not-shit incident well past what is necessary in fiction.

He has what-the-fuck passages like this:

“Boys like this kid grow up instinctively realizing that language is an artifact, like a sword or...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Christina Caglar rated it 4 of 5 stars

People have knocked this book but I enjoyed it. Wolfe always has plots of Dickensian complication, in my opinion, and it is fun to see how everything comes together. Definitely, there are Wolfeianisms (loamy loins of course had to make an appearance, plus an aggressive use of colons), but I appreciate him trying to make language reflect sound, rhythm, etc. While checking reviews, I noticed that everyone who said they lived or had lived in Miami loved it, so I thought it would be an interesting r...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: try-again-someday

Nestor Camacho, who drives a Camaro, just can't catch a break. He's a young police officer in Miami who performs super-human feats, and yet each heroic act leads to trouble. Nestor leads us through Wolfe's sprawling, rambling story of Miami's different communities. Wolfe takes on everyone: the Cubans, the Haitians, the Yalie transplant journalists, the Russian mob, and the Art Basel crowd.

This is the kind of thing Wolfe does well--mocking and satirizing and poking fun at specific people (if I k...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Dramatika rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read all major works by Tom Wolfe, so was very excited to start with his new book. The book has all the usual themes: power struggle, race relations and people from very diverse background striving to get ahead in life. It was an easy read, fast paced and entertaining enough to finish it quickly. However, I was disappointed that some of the characters the book started with were half finished and disappeared toward the end. The plot is too unbelievable at times with the main character Nestor be...more

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About Tom Wolfe

Wolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.

Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into...more

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