---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64268 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-28
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ever since he published his classic 1972 essay "Why They Aren't Writing the Great American Novel Anymore," Tom Wolfe has made his fictional preferences loud and clear. For New Journalism's poster boy, minimalism is a wash, not to mention a failure of nerve. The real mission of the American writer is to produce fat novels of social observation--the sort of thing Balzac would be dishing up if he had made it into the Viagra era. Wolfe's manifesto would have had a hubristic ring if he hadn't actually delivered the goods in 1987 with The Bonfire of the Vanities. Now, more than a decade later, he's back with a second novel. Has the Man in White lived up to his own mission?

On many counts, the answer would have to be "yes". Like its predecessor, A Man in Full is a big-canvas work, in which a multitude of characters seems to be ascending or (rapidly) descending the greasy pole of social life: "In an era like this one," a character reminds us, "the 20th century's fin de siècle position was everything, and it was the hardest thing to get." Wolfe has changed terrain on us, to be sure. Instead of New York, the focus here is Atlanta, Georgia, where the struggle for turf and power is at least slightly patinated with Deep South gentility. The plot revolves around Charlie Croker, an egomaniacal good ol' boy with a crumbling real-estate empire on his hands. But Wolfe is no less attentive to a pair of supporting players: a downwardly mobile family man, Conrad Hensley, and Roger White II, an African American attorney at a white-shoe firm. What ultimately causes these subplots to converge--and threatens to ignite a racial firestorm in Atlanta--is the alleged rape of a society deb by Georgia Tech American football star Fareek "The Cannon" Fanon.

Of course, a detailed plot summary would be about as long as your average minimalist novel. Suffice it to say that A Man in Full is packed with the sort of splendid set pieces we've come to expect from Wolfe. A quail hunt on Charlie's 29,000-acre plantation, a stuffed-shirt evening at the symphony, a politically loaded press conference--the author assembles these scenes with contagious delight. The book is also very, very funny. The law firms, like upper- crust powerhouse Fogg Nackers Rendering & Lean, are straight out of Dickens, and Wolfe brings even his minor characters, like professional hick Opey McCorkle, to vivid life:

In true Opey McCorkle fashion he had turned up for dinner wearing a plaid shirt, a plaid necktie, red felt suspenders, and a big old leather belt that went around his potbelly like something could hitch up a mule with, but for now he had cut off his usual torrent of orotund rhetoric mixed with Baker Countyisms.

Readers in search of a kinder, gentler Wolfe may well be disappointed. Retaining the satirist's (necessary) superiority to his subject, he tends to lose his edge precisely when he's trying to move us. Still, when it comes to maximalist portraiture of the American scene--and to sheer, sentence-by-sentence amusement--1998 looks to be the year of the Wolfe, indeed. --James Marcus, Amazon.com

Synopsis
Atlanta conglomerate king, Charles Croker, has expansionist ambitions and an outsize ego. He also has a young and demanding second wife and a half-empty office tower running up debts. When a football star from Atlanta's grimmest slum is accused of rape, the city's racial balance is shattered.

---

Customer Reviews

A modern American masterpeice
A brilliant insight into the world of the 'American Dream'; the highs, the lows and the spaces in between.
Tom Wolfe portrays his characters beautifully - we see their dreams, ambitions and failures set within the context of modern American life and all its ironies. Nobody does it better! Kipling once said "success and failure are two imposters to be regarded with the same suspicion," and I think that sentiment embodies the undertone to all Tom Wolfe's work.
I have noticed that some people are disappointed with Tom Wolfe's endings; it's as if they expect some great hollywood climax to it all, the final desperate sword fight. This is not his style, the journey is in some ways more important than the destination, his books are, after all, social documentaries, full of irony with complex and interweaving three dimensional characters we can all believe in and often empathise with. In a sense there is no real beginning and end, but for a few hundred pages of a magical book, we enter into the lives of these people and share the experience that is 'living in modern America.'
One reviewer has said that Tom Wolfe is perhaps a modern Charles Dickens and I very much agree with that, the comparison is not at all out of place.

One of my all-time favourites
This is the fourth time I have read this book and it is just as refreshing a read as it was first time round. The characters are involving and a terrific mixture: lawyers, developers and ordinary working people and despite the book's length it is definitely not a trial to read unlike some works of contemporary fiction (all Thomas Pynchon books for example). The ending of the book does feel a bit abrupt, particularly given the amazing level of detail in the preceding 700 pages, but this does not ruin what is a fantastic reading experience.

A Novel Too Full
Wolfe examined the fabric of American society in an original manner with `Bonfire of the Vanities'. `A Man in Full' reworks the same themes - the effect on ordinary lives of a rich man's actions, racial politics and the workings of the U.S. media and justice systems.

Any novel this size should tell a pretty good tale to justify its length. `A Man in Full' is a good story, but would have benefited from significant trimming. A major criticism is that the book's interminable passages of description often threaten to crush the reader's will to discover what happens next.

Wolfe's stylistic tics are constant throughout - lots of unnecessary italics, CAPITALISATION and comic book onomatopoeia. His endless attempts to capture urban vernacular speech can be a bit embarrassing too, rather like watching an elderly gentleman try to rap.

This novel has much to recommend it - decent plot, well-formed characters, and some very good individual scenes. The book's finale, however, is unspectacular and may seem unsatisfying to readers who have been asked to invest heavily with their time to reach it.

`A Man in Full' could have been a leaner and punchier novel. This tome needed an editor who was not dazzled by Wolfe's white suits.