A decade ago, The Bonfire of the Vanities defined an era and established Tom Wolfe as our prime fictional chronicler of America at its most outrageous and alive. Now the master is back with a pitch-perfect coast-to-coast portrait of our wild and woolly, no-holds-barred, multifarious country on the cusp of the millennium.
The setting is Atlanta, Georgia--a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000-acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife--and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt.
Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system. And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek "the Cannon" Fanon, a homegrown product of the city's slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city's delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.
Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates, the cast-off first wives of the corporate elite--Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker's deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious, and telling novel America has seen in ages--Tom Wolfe's outstanding achievement to date.
New York Times Book Review
The novel contains passages as powerful and as beautiful as anything written by...any American novelist....The book is as funny as anything Wolfe has ever written, at the same time it is also deeply, strangely affecting.
Time Magazine
No summary of A Man in Full can do justice to the novel's ethical nuances and hell-bent packing, its sweep and intricate interweaving of private and public responsibilities, its electric sense of conveying current events and its knowing portraits of people actually doing their jobs. Who, besides Wolfe, would have thought that banking and real estate transactions could be the stuff of gripping fiction? Who else would have set a scene, the most over the top in the whole novel in the breeding barn of Turpmtine, where Charlie, in a misguided attempt to impress his guests from Atlanta, makes them, male and female alike, witness a tumultuous mating between one of his stallions and a mare?
The Library Journal
Imagine Bonfire of the Vanities set in Atlanta a star running back from the slums is accused of raping the daughter of a blueblood family even as Asian immigrants sneak into town and protagonist Charlie Croker, a football star turned businessman, tries to get out of debt.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Neccie N
Its a brilliant book. Tom Wolfe had me reading again.
Rated of 5
by Anonymous
I listened to A Man In Full on tape, and I was utterly enthralled with the plot line, the fine characterizations, and the knowing depiction of Americans at various levels on the economic scale. The juxtaposition of Conrad and Charley demonstates... Read More
Review (not rated)
by Anonymous Roger Singer In 'A Man in Full' Tom Wolfe has tried to capture the essence of a time period, as he has done so masterfully in the past. Unfortunately, this time around it becomes too obvious too soon that Mr. Wolfe has reached... Read More
Review (not rated)
by Anonymous Joe Pearl Tremendously satisfying character development. No hidden agendas. a page turner. Wolfe seems to have been in a hurry to finish. The wrap-up ending was somewhat disappointing.
Review (not rated)
by Anonymous Nigel Bly Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full is not only an outstandingly entertaining book, but one that leaves the reader feeling deeply satisfied. Where one would be hard pressed to find a character in Bonfire of the Vanities to feel... Read More
Review (not rated)
by Anonymous Linda A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe is not, in my opinion, a page-turner. Rich men who discard their wives is the fare of T.V. soap. What happens in the first 200 pages is predictable. Is it worth continuing? Why?
A dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way—and not—in New York City.
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