Indeed
We are living Bomfire day to day over race....and that book was over thirty years ago
Wolfe was very personable
I rarely bothered celebs then or now
As your post revealed, you were one of his people in many ways.
I think of that book, Bonfire of the Vanities, almost every time I am driving in any city in the U.S., and at many other times as well, when dealing with ego or materialsim in myself or others.
I was distressed to read in one of the proliferating online memorials today that he held himself out as an atheist. I hope he changed his mind recently. A friend divulged to me in 1969 a scandal concerning him that I will take to my grave, but his life seems to have achieved a steady keel over the long haul, even in the face of his notoriety. He appears to have resisted the party circuit of his privileged surroundings; either that, or after his exposé of Bernstein, he didn't get invited to the liberals' parties any more (and to the NY publishing establishment, any rare conservative ones were not worth dishing about). Or it could be that his seemingly quiet personal life was due to that old platitude: Avoid talking to a writer—you might show up as a caricature of yourself in his next book. He certainly punctured many an inflated cultural balloon.