Tom Wolfe has not only changed publishing houses, but locale as well. Wolfe is writing a new novel about immigration. According to the release, the novel will look at "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption and ambition in Miami, the city where America's future has arrived first." Major characters include a "young nurse of Cuban ancestry," a "second-generation Cuban police officer," and "a woman of Haitian background who passes for Anglo. Wolfe originally researched the Vietnamese community in California before settling on Miami "would make a richer, more complex setting. "As far as I know, it's the only city in the world in which more than half the population is recent immigrants," he said. "They run Miami politically. This is a situation in which there is one collision of racial and ethnic groups after another. You don't have to make up anything. You don't dare. The imagination is scrawny compared to what goes on down there." The WSJ has the details, and they even quote one of my ex bosses, Mitch Kaplan of Books & Books "There will be a lot of interest in how he takes what Miami is and how he spins it," said Mr. Kaplan, who is confident that the book will be a strong seller in his market. "Anybody who reads Tom Wolfe knows it will be his vision. But I don't know that any one person can get to the heart of the reality of south Florida today."
What Tom Wolfe will write about the immigrant community is anyones guess. Hopefully he will approach it fairly, and show all aspects if them, instead of focusing on certain segments
