Back to Blood

A Novel

By: Tom Wolfe

Narrated by: Lou Diamond Phillips

Length: 20 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

A big, panoramic story of the new America, as told by our master chronicler of the way we live now.

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 - until lately, the love of Nestor's life; a refined, and oh-so-light-skinned young woman from Haiti and her Creole-spouting, black-gang-banger-stylin' little brother; a billionaire porn addict; crack dealers in the 'hoods; "de-skilled" conceptual artists at the Miami Art Basel Fair; "spectators" at the annual Biscayne Bay regatta looking only for that night's orgy; yenta-heavy ex-New Yorkers at an "Active Adult" condo; and a nest of shady Russians.

Based on the same sort of detailed, on-scene, high-energy reporting that powered Tom Wolfe's previous best-selling novels, Back to Blood is another brilliant, spot-on, scrupulous, and often hilarious reckoning with our times.

©2012 Tom Wolfe (P)2012 Hachette

A Tom Wolfe Classic

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.

I get it, I get it, I GET IT!!!!!

Would you try another book from Tom Wolfe and/or Lou Diamond Phillips?

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

Would you recommend Back to Blood to your friends? Why or why not?

Not this one, and it pains me to say that

What about Lou Diamond Phillips’s performance did you like?

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

Was Back to Blood worth the listening time?

yes, but irritating

Any additional comments?

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!!!

Classic Wolfe

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.

Tom Wolfe + Lou Diamond Phillips = A GREAT LISTEN!

Where does Back to Blood rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

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

What does Lou Diamond Phillips bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

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.

Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much.

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.

Masterful Story-tel!ing & Great Narration!

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.

Old master breathes new life

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.

Great performance by Lou Diamond Phillips

Where does Back to Blood rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top ten

What other book might you compare Back to Blood to and why?

Bonfire of the Vanities

Any additional comments?

The acting by the reader was far better than reading the book. I

Spectacular! Is That Clear Enough?

First off, there are no better performers in this genre than Lou Diamond Phillips. He is a genius. Okay... now for what he performed...

Since listening to Back To Blood, I have read the reviews. Apparently the NYT, Boston Globe, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Washington Post, and on and on... Seemed bent on dismissing this book. The kind of catty poseurs who Wolfe undresses in his books seemed to have struck a consensus.... "Well," they smear. "We've read this book before. Every since Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe has played the same old note revealing what he seems to think is the dysfunctional culture of the cultural elite." And of course each of these reviewers and publications represent the 'cultural elite.' Yet instead of criticizing Wolf'e arguments, they dismiss him as 'old news'. Hmmmm... I wonder if, by this reasoning any of those publications should ever run with another rape story - since after the first - all are old news. Or should they publish/broadcast/post another corruption story, or for that matter, another brittle praise for a naked new artist clothed only in the superlatives that their 'critics' layer over this month's darling?

Yep, Wolfe goes farther and deeper in Back To Blood in his riposte and ridicule of the asininities of the cognoscenti, the PC crowd, and the literary, art, political, and publishing elite. Worse ye,t for these reviewers, Wolfe is entertaining... his work, unlike most which they endorse, has the power to communicate its message to a broad swath of the public. Wolfe' worse sin is his power to resonate.

And Back To Blood resonates with the same sort of gong as the great social critics of the 20s, 30s, and 40s rang as the revealed the emptiness of the pretentious elites of their moment (does the name Gatsby resonate here?). This is today's great American Novel and should be read as part of an ongoing and deepening exposé along with Bonfire Of The Vanities, A Man In Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. John Updike once dismissed Wolfe as "an entertainer" and not a creator of literature. And there is a very real danger that Updike's trifling cocktail favorite but so... so... tame works will be remembered because of their cultural safety, while Wolfe will be kept off of the required reading lists with which we train and grow our literati.

Back To Blood is a great novel. It demands a spot on the same shelf as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Upton Sinclair,Sinclair Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Koestler, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Heller, John O'Hara, and Robert Penn Warren. Actually this entire series of Wolfe's books should be thought of as one work... each deepening the reader's understanding of a time and place in America's history and stagnation.

European elitists have often dismissed America as a place that passed from barbarism to decadence without ever experiencing civilization. To the degree that they are correct, Wolfe's revealing the pathway and the facilitators ... the enablers. What's particularly interesting though is that the ensemble of actors in Wolfe's epic, multi-novel drama. may be much too familiar to the very European cognoscenti who so easily condescend their American cousins.

Lou Diamond Phillips should get an EMMY

What made the experience of listening to Back to Blood the most enjoyable?

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.

Who was your favorite character and why?

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

What about Lou Diamond Phillips’s performance did you like?

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!

If you could take any character from Back to Blood out to dinner, who would it be and why?

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!

Any additional comments?

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.

Brilliant

This is an excellent, cleverly written and funny book. As with all Tom Wolfe's main characters, there is a greek tragedy development of hubris, nemesis and catharsis, with many well developed minor characters playing alongside. And the reader is quite excellent, really the best I have heard, regardless of whether he is doing men or women, hispanic, black or white. The reader pushes my rating from a 4 to a 5 star. There is only one slight negative and that is that Tom Wolfe employs a peculiar narative device for emphasis and that is to repeat himself, repeat himself, repeat himself. After a while it actually gets a bit annoying, annoying, annoying. But thats really quite minor compared to the overall pleasure from listening to this book.

Magnificent prose, read by a pro

Brilliant! Exceptional descriptions, fantastic characters, and read in a most entertaining way. Couldn't fault it!

Will challenge you. But you'll keep listening.

The book was a long worthwhile listen. Written and read aloud from the heart. I didn't agree with all his conclusions, which at times a little too contrived and sentimental. But in the whole really compelled me to listen. And think.

Great pace, fabulous insight

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Sharply written, incisive, beautifully observed. This book has pace, tension, humour and paints a revealing, disturbing and often hilarious picture of Miami life

What other book might you compare Back to Blood to, and why?

Bonfire of the Vanities - the only other Tom Wolfe I've read

What does Lou Diamond Phillips bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

He portrays accents well, and brings the often deliberately absurd repetitive phrases to life.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It certainly made me laugh, and kept me enthral led throughout. I was sad when the 20 hours was over

Excellent story and performance

Tom Wolfe strikes again with an incredibly good narration. I really enjoyed. Waiting to listening to The Bonfire of Vanities by L. D. Phillips!!

Excellent!

Nothing short of excellent - the novel as well as the performance. Wolfe was a genius.

Outstanding

Hard to tell which is better: Tom Wolfe's extraordinary novel or Lou Diamond Phillips's virtuoso performance. Roll on 'Bonfire of Vanities' on Audible.

Great achievement

This is a crowning achievement of Tom Wolfe’s new journalism novel writing. And if they don’t already hand out awards for narrating audiobooks then they ought to start, just to give Lou Diamond Phillips one for bringing so many disparate voices to life.

Dazzling read!

This book just scrapes through to 5 stars for me because a novel which indubitably has one or two faults is rendered riveting by the narration of Lou Diamond Philips. In fact I can’t understand why he isn’t commissioned to read ALL Tom Wolfe’s novels which actually ‘perform’ better voiced than on the page. Wolfe’s trademark idiosyncrasies such as multiple exclamation marks, capitalisations and repetitions can be tedious on the eye and, er, a bit overdone. A narrator, however skilled, can’t really enunciate ten exclamation marks or make upper case sound like more than a raised voice - which is a blessing!
A rattling good yarn that keeps your ear glued and with more than one character you can actually root for (unusual for Tom Wolfe), although all have their flaws.
One thing that disturbed me was great tracts of what seemed to be ‘inner monologue’ which bore no resemblance to the characters’ insight or educational level. This was jarring. Take a character like the girlfriend, Magdalena who, it’s constantly being pointed out, has a very limited vocabulary and virtually no general knowledge. Chapter after chapter follows Magdalena getting into one tricky situation after another, floundering about acting naive and ignorant, and suddenly the authorial voice intrudes with what seem to be complex thought processes which couldn’t possibly be hers. The same for others.
A minor quibble, though, when immersed in such a dynamic story!
As always Wolfe efficiently and hilariously illuminates and dissects social and racial tensions and types through, mainly, speech and clothing. A short dissertation on whether a shirt should be tucked in or left hanging out can tell you so much about where someone stands in Tom Wolfe’s world! A line of dialogue from a teenager tells you where ‘their’ aspirations lie. You feel as if this author has really listened to and observed every sub group he writes about. The groups ring true, even if the individual characters don’t get much beyond cardboard cut-out.
Where Tom Wolfe falls right down is on Russians. Since when did Russian consist of zzzzzs? And not one Russian character steps out from a common tabloidisation.
But never mind. I’ll be listening to this one again. So much power in the language, so much commentary, so many laughs! RIP.

Good book elevated by outstanding performance

Very good novel from Tom Wolfe. Not his best but I think it’s themes and characters are even more relevant now than when it was first published. In my view, it’s stature with grow as it ages.

But hats off to Lou Diamond Phillips. World class narration.