The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe beganThe Right Stuffat a time when it was  unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and  in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late  as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the  anti-hero."Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction  novel that Truman Capote had pioneered withIn Cold Blood. As  Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective,  dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major  player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when  Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we  discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne. Chuck Yeager was certainly among the fastest, and his determination to push through Mach 1--a feat that some had predicted  would cause the destruction of any aircraft--makes him the book's guiding spirit.Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic  on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to  Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and  literary merits are secure. CertainlyThe Right Stuffis the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned  space program.--Patrick O'Kelley--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.