Back to Blood: A Novel

Tom Wolfe has done it again! No one tells a story like Wolfe. As always,l his command of the English language combined with great story-telling and a liberal dose of satire has resulted in a novel that I simply could not stop listening to, even though I really needed to get some sleep. Lou Diamond Phillips' narration was amazing. I didn't feel like he was reading the book, but rather telling a colorful story. I also enjoyed the added production value of Latin music that made me feel like I was actually in Miami. I highly recommend this highly entertaining listen.

I was so worried Tom Wolfe would not produce the same masterful social commentary that he so amazingly spins in Charlotte Simmons, Bonfire and Man in Full but he does in Back to Blood. I was a little disappointed with the ending but other than that, it's classic Tom Wolfe. Lou Diamond Phillips is phenomenal...very good casting.

I have listened to 3 Tom Wolfe Audiobooks and they ALL rank among my top favorite listens! Well worth the credits!

LDP's narration was magnificent! I thought that maybe there was more than one narrator, but it was just him. I am definitely about to search through all the titles that he narrates and see if I can find something else great to listen to.

Get the picture? Tom Wolfe holds a unique place in American journalism over the past fifty years. Ever since Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers, Mr. Wolfe has been writing extraordinarily over the top stories about whatever catches his fancy. IMHO, the Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full are his best works by far. His gifts are many. His ear for dialects across the country is amazing. He creates some of the most cinematic scenes that you will ever read. Much of his writing is really memorable. He has roamed around our culture and chosen some wide-ranging aspects of it, each of his books being meticulously detailed to the nth degree. Lou Diamond Phillips, BTW, is the perfect narrator for these books. He has actorly skills, but in this book he is forced to make a large number of noises that should have been edited out. Rigorously slashed.
And here lies the problem. Mr. Wolfe is now so large and iconic that editors must blanche at the sight of him. Overdoing is his trademark. There are times when this approach works beautifully. There are other times when he should turn down the volume, way way down. And he doesn't. This is a story about Miami, and about all of its various races-ethnic-cultural-artistic (see what I mean?) dimensions. It is over-reaching, but in some places it hits the mark. Nestor Camacho rescues a Haitian Immigrant from the top of a seventy foot mast, and manages to first climb up the mast with only his arms. Then he grabs the guy with his legs (oh so incredibly muscular) and crabwalks him down to the deck. By this time there is a gigantic traffic jam, newscopters, onlookers, etc. It's a very vivid scene, and it sets up many facets of the plot(s) in a gorgeous, writerly way. You can see why it takes him eight years or so to knock out these monsters. There is so much going on that, after a while, you need a scorecard to keep the players straight. There are Russian "oligarchs" (read: criminals who have stolen much of the riches of the former Soviet Union in order to flash around their wealth); Haitian immigrants and politicians; Cubans everywhere; occasionally a Jew, a WASP, an Italian, you name it. We are the melting pot, and Tom has thrown us all in, stirred, and concocted a heady stew of stuff (stop me before I start getting rhapsodical). Nestor's girlfriend at the beginning is Magdalena Otero, a naif who is so blazingly beautiful that she gets drawn into the upper echelons of Miami's richest. She works for a psychiatrist who specializes in "pornography addiction." Norman, the psychiatrist, is a shameless self-promoter and a disgusting individual in his own right. Ghislaine is a (of course) beautiful young woman, the daughter of a professor who is being forced to teach Creole, the language of the lowest of the immigrants. See how this is beginning to pile up all around you? I could go on, but I wish that Tom hadn't. By the third segment I really couldn't stand the book any more. Waaay too much of a sometimes good thing.

The narration by Lou Diamond Phillips make BACK TO BLOOD superb entertainment. Tom Wolfe brought America's greatest city to life with his characters - my wife and I listened to the book for several nights, often replaying chapters as they were so interesting the second time round.

All of the characters came alive, MIAMI was the best!

All of his narration was a performance - please let me know if he's doing any more. He bumped prime time TV for the week!

Wouldn't that be fun? I feel that I have already taken them out to dinner, Hell they were bed with my wife and I all week!

Tom Wolfe has written the perfect pilot for a series on Miami. We were sad to come to the end, there is so much more. BRILLIANT.

Fabulously accurate portrayal of Miami's underbelly. Wolfe captures all the nuances of this "welding pot" metropolis. Rich characters. Good pacing. And satisfying ending. Like fine wine, Wolfe betters with age.

It's portrayal of the mind set of Cubans in Miami within their own peoples and towards other ethnic groups.

Nestor Camacho

I enjoyed this story as much as A Man in Full. Part of what makes a story great is the adventure of learning things you never knew about a culture and a region, interesting things, and often fascinating things. I was completely captured over and over as this story careens from one cultural clique to another. We follow an unwilling and unlikely protagonist in Nestor Camacho a pumped up Cuban and Miami cop, almost a Keystone cop in the way he tries his best just to keep from screwing up yet winds up time and again as the center of Miami's media focus - as both a hero and a villan. Great story. Great characters. Great performance.

Yes, I'm a fan of Tom Wolfe. I keep the hope.

Not this one, and it pains me to say that

Lou Diamond Phillips has many convincing voices and gives a great show

yes, but irritating

Mr Wolfe's use of repeated, repeated, repeated words and phrases was probably supposed to paint a picture and impress the reader of the importance of that sentiment. It worked for the first three or four times, then it turned old, old, old. I felt nagged, nagged, NAGGED and whacked over the head --over and over and over again. Bam, bam, bam, bam...you get the picture. Was the story not long enough? Did he feel he had to quadruple the length of the content? Did he not trust his readers to GET IT? Did he think he was writing a film script? As much as I liked Mr Phillips' dramatic performance, I started to have an urge to stuff a pillow in his face. It is still a credit to Mr Wolfe's story telling genius that I stuck through the whole thing, but irritated, irritated, irritated!!!

I have not finished the book yet, but I have to tell you...I live in Miami, and the pronunciation of some of the areas in Miami is horrendous... It's Brickell Ave, not BRICK-EL! Come On- Man!
I can't stand the obnoxious laugh of the doctor. Even with this, it is one of the best books I have listened to in a long time. I do not want it to end.

Nestor... so real

He would be great if he learned how to pronounce the names of some of the most famous areas in Miami... It's Brickell, not BRICK - EL, and the annoying laugh of the Doctor.

so far, all of them