The Right Stuff

Author: Tom Wolfe and Robin Sloan

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Description

"Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review), The Right Stuff is the basis for the 1983 Oscar-winning film of the same name and the eight-part Disney+ miniseries.

Reissued for today's reader with a cover by the renowned artist Seymour Chwast and an introduction by the New York Times bestselling author Robin Sloan.

What does it take to be an astronaut?

First published in 1979, Tom Wolfe's astounding book The Right Stuff answers this question and more, exploring both the mental and the physical sacrifices that must be made by individuals entering space. Wolfe tells the stories of the pilots, engineers, and astronauts involved in Project Mercury (1958-1963), the United States' first human spaceflight program.

A breathtaking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the heroism and courage of the first American astronauts to conquer space, The Right Stuff is a true American classic.

Critic Reviews

"Technically accurate, learned, cheeky, risky, touching, tough, compassionate, nostalgic, worshipful, jingoistic . . . The Right Stuff is superb." --The New York Times Book Review

"One of the most romantic and thrilling books ever written about men who put themselves in peril." --The Boston Globe

"An exhilarating flight into fear, love, beauty, and fiery death . . . Magnificent." --People

"Absolutely first class . . . Improbable as some of Wolfe's tales seem, I know he's telling it like it was." --The Washington Post Book World

"Crammed with inside poop and racy incident . . . fast cars, booze, astro groupies, the envies and injuries of the military caste system . . . Wolfe lays it all out in brilliantly staged Op Lit scenes." --Time

"Splendid . . . It shows our propensity to manufacture heroes, and, just as quickly, to forget them; it shows how a scientific program was exploited for political advantage; it provides a revealing character study of seven exceptional Americans." --The Saturday Review

About the Author

Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) was one of the founders of the New Journalism movement and the author of such classics as The Right Stuff and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, along with several novels including The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. His numerous honors include the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, the Washington Irving Medal, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation Medal. He lived in New York City.