A Man in Full

Big men. Big money. Big games. Big libidos. Big trouble.

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. This time the setting is Atlanta, Georgia--a racially mixed late-century boomtown full of 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.

A Man in Full is a 1998 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar Strauss & Giroux-3pl
Published: 11/01/1998
ISBN: 9780374270322
Pages: 727
Weight: 2.60lbs
Size: 9.56h x 6.68w x 2.10d
Award: National Book Awards - Nominee

Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 07/01/1998 pg. 70
Publishers Weekly 11/09/1998 pg. 58
New York Times 11/08/1998 pg. 17
Booklist 11/15/1998 pg. 548
Library Journal 11/15/1998 pg. 93
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 01/01/1999 pg. 71
Publishers Weekly Best Books 01/01/1998 pg. 42
Library Journal 07/01/1998