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In fact, free time seems to unsettle Wolfe a bit, since he admits he has "no minor vices" with which to fill the gap. When he arrived on the scene in the early '60s, Manhattan journalists were a notoriously hard-drinking bunch. Wolfe was not tempted to join the boys in the bars. Doing research for The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, he found himself surrounded by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and unlimited supplies of drugs and hallucinogens. "I always wore a coat and tie and carried a loose-leaf notebook and ballpoint pen," he recalls. "Once, Kesey suggested that I put away the reporter's equipment and just be with the rest of them for a while. I understood this to mean that he wanted me to join the party and take LSD. But I knew another writer who'd accepted this invitation and never picked up his notebook again. So I declined."
Given his dedication to craft over fun, Wolfe seems destined to return to his desk--a custom-designed mahogany construction concealing all sorts of electronic gadgets, including a pencil sharpener--and his manual Underwood typewriter, and begin another book. In fact, he has two in mind. One is a novel about contemporary American education. "The topic sounds dull, but I think there are plenty of madcap escapades going on in that field that might be fun to write about." Teachers and school administrators: beware a man in a white suit entering your classrooms and taking notes. The second is a nonfiction book about social status. "Vance Packard covered this topic in The Status Seekers, which I thought was a terrific book. But maybe it's time to take another look," he says. "We like to consider ourselves free spirits, but here is my Theory of Everything: we're all motivated, and I certainly include myself here, far more than we want to admit, by group expectations. How other people view us has an important effect on how we view ourselves. That's why Charlie fought so hard to gain and retain Turpmtine."
And maybe that's why Wolfe wants to get back to work, gathering facts and risking missed deadlines. He has all the status any writer could want, but A Man in Full promises another megaboost in group expectations.
--With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York