Running throughout The Pump House Gang is the central theme of most of Tom Wolfe's writing: Status. Much of the book deals with a surprising phenomenon in contemporary life: a determined retreat from conventional social hierarchies that Tom Wolfe calls "starting your own league." Surfers, motorcyclists, lumpen-dandies and . . . yes . . . stay-at-homes (see "The King of the Status Drop-Outs")-everybody's doing it. Except for die-hards in the crumbling old social worlds of New York and London, where the confusion is so great (see "Bob and Spike" and "The Mid-Atlantic Man") that nobody can tell whether this is really the path to the top they've taken or just the service elevator.

Dazzlingly brilliant as a stylist, daringly provocative as a commentator, and always entertaining, Tom Wolfe is in his new book quite thoroughly . . . himself. He is at his best with the Pump House Gang, a remarkable surfing elite-who reappear briefly in a book published simultaneously with this one, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, about the adventures of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the rise of the psychedelic life style in America, and the founding of a bizarre new religion. In the midst of it all, many members of the redoubtable Pump House Gang become indoor sports-happily freaking out in pads rather than wiping out in the surf, but with the same unique Pump House Gang flair.