"If you have ever stared uncomprehendingly at an abstract painting that admired critics have said you ought to dig, take heart. Tom Wolfe . is on your side. The Painted Word may enrage you. It may confirm your darkest suspicions about Modern Art. In any case, it will amuse you." -- New York Sunday News "Tom Wolfe is a journalist who always manages to combine an encyclopedic store of inside knowledge with the obstinate detachment of a visitor from Mars, not to mention a brilliant style and incisive wit." -- San Francsico Chronicle " The Painted Word may well be Tom Wolfe's most successful piece of social criticism to date.

" -- The New York Times " The Painted Word is a masterpiece. No one in the art world . could fail to recognize its essential truth. I read it four times, each of them with mounting envy for Wolfe's eye, ear, and surgical skill." -- The Washington Post "His eye and ear for detailed observations are incomparable; and observation is to the satirist what bullets are to a gun." -- The Boston Sunday Globe.