Tom Wolfe was the well-known author of The Right Stuff (about the astronauts) and a number of other popular books. He wrote many articles that assaulted the current culture. After one particularly strong satirical piece, he was attacked furiously by numerous critics. In a West magazine interview, he spoke about his response to being so vilified:

Q. Were you scared the first time you saw their fury come at you?

A. I was. Walter Lippmann, a confidant of presidents who wrote on my very own paper, called me an ass. J. D. Salinger, who hadn't uttered a word to the press in a decade, sent a telegram calling my articles yellow journalism. E. B. White described me as a horseman riding very tall in the saddle, dragging an innocent victim on the ground behind him I thought the sky was falling.

I wondered how I could possibly survive this. A week later, it gradually began to dawn on me nothing had happened except that people had become terribly interested in me. It was a valuable lesson.

It's part of the perversity of our times. If you are denounced enough, you become swell. Claus von Bulow walks into a restaurant, and people part like the Red Sea. You can't be denounced enough nowadays.