A Man in Full: A Novel [J0324]

1998 HCDJ, 742-pages, with some cover/spine wear and nice clean text pages. Big men. Big money. Big games. Big libidos. Big trouble. In his #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, A MAN IN FULL, the setting is Atlanta, Georgia-a racially mixed late-century boomtown teeming with fresh wealth, avid speculators, and worldly-wise politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta real-estate entrepreneur turned conglomerate king, whose expansionist ambitions and outsize ego have at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 28,000-acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife--and a half-empty office tower with a staggering load of debt. When star running back Fareek Fanon--the pride of one of Atlanta's grimmest slums--is accused of raping an Atlanta blueblood's daughter, the city's delicate racial balance is shattered overnight. Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real-estate syndicates, cast-off first wives of the corporate elite, the racially charged politics of college sports--Wolfe shows us the disparate worlds of contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most phenomenal, most admired contemporary novelist.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Probably one of the best novels I've ever read. I love that it's funny and I love that it's set in Atlanta. I can't believe it was written in 1998. Tom Wolfe saw the underpinnings of BLM and MeToo 20 years out. Had the allegations between Fannon and Armholster come out today, it would likely be adjudicated much faster in the court of public opinion, preventing all the shenanigans that unfold in the book. This is one of those "read if you want to understand the world we live in today" novels."; "I have mixed feelings. On one hand, Tom Wolfe is a great writer and knows how to incorporate comedic elements so flawlessly, yet I don't think he should have touched into some subjects that he did. Sure it's a satire of the upper class white elite in Atlanta, but for a white author to dive so deep into characterizing the Black community is many steps too far."; "A novel with great structure, great set pieces, great characters. Even if you don't get US politics, deep South customs, nor big money, that doesn't matter. It's the underlying truth that's universal. A tremendous read."