Rating: 
Summary: A Book in Full needs a beginning, a middle and an ending too
Review: For almost 700 pages this book was a joy to read - not despite but because of the overdrawn characters and rollicking plotline. Wolfe creates a dozen (mostly) memorable characters, warmly posing them like a shameless family photographer amidst a richly textured southern landscape. The whole exercise sits squarely on the fine line between caricature and stereotype, and while neither the story nor the characters feel "real" the result is an effortless, engaging read. The effect is an almost mythic tale that actually hinges upon the near mythic account of certain long-dead philosophers. The plot, the dialogue and the characters are clearly designed to serve one another in equal measure, building a story that's true in the way that all myths are true - because of what it means to illustrate. It's meant to be over the top, and Wolfe smiles and winks with every joyous excess. That's why the sudden collapse of the story line at the end of the book seem entirely unfair and deeply disappointing. With 700 pages of preparation and at least four major plotlines all converging at last, I expected a bombastic finish worthy of the buildup. What I got instead was 25 or so hurried pages that tied up every loose end in the least satisfying way imaginable; a contrived dialogue where one character explains everything that went unwritten. Deux Ex Machina may be a classic mythic device but it's never felt so cheap as it does here; even bad detective stories routinely do a better job at this. Imagine a Beethoven symphony building for almost an hour to a quick finale composed of a breezy ragtime tune; the sudden change in atmosphere that came at the very end of this book was that jarring. One can almost imagine that the author himself was disappointed to end it this way, his love for the characters having been so evident for so long. I truly felt cheated, and can only imagine that an editorial decision or publishing deadline caused the sudden and traumatic amputation of such a florid story line. The last chapter, "Epilogue", could easily have sustained 100 more lushly written pages of exploration as these characters finally reached full flower. Is it too much to hope for the re-released "Director's Cut?"
Rating:
Summary: Great novel even if John Updike says not
Review: Alanta, Georgia stars in Tom Wolfe's latest novel, A Man in Full. This book, already nominated for a National Book Award, follows Mr. Wolfe's other blockbuster novels Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff. The main character in Tom Wolfe's novel is Charlie Croker, a 250 pound former Georgia Tech football player turned real estate developer. Charlie is a provincial Donald Trump. At Georgia Tech, Charlie was called the 60 Minute Man because he played both offense and defense for the full 60 minute game. Atlanta is like no other city in the South since it lacks much historical lore. It is not old and decorated with stately 200-yeard old mansions like Charleston, Savannah, or Richmond. Anything antique in Atlanta was long ago razed to make way for a myriad of gleaming glass office towers. While the harmony between white businessmen and black citizens is good, in Atlanta blacks and whites live apart like they do in most American cities. But unlike most cities, in Atlanta blacks thoroughly control local politics, because 75% of the voting population is black. They proudly refer to their home as the Chocolate Mecca. Consequently all the political power is vested squarely in their hands. At the pinnacle of black society are the Spellman and Morehouse college elite such as the attorney Roger White, another major character in the novel. At school, Roger White earned the nickname "Roger Too White" from his college classmates. This refers to his flawless dress, interest in classical music, and impeccable English free of black colloquialisms. Through Roger Too White, we learn several heretofore well-kept secrets of black society. Roger White is also a member of another privileged circle. These are black people who can pass the so-called "paper bag test". These are black people whose skin color is no darker than a brown paper bag. The main character Charlie Croker is a down-home country fellow who has made a pile of money in the real estate business. He spends it lavishly on toys like a Gulfstream V jet and a 28,000 acre quail-hunting plantation. The stewardess of his jet is a shapely honey named Peaches. Only in Georgia-the self-proclaimed Peach State--would you find a mouth-watering bimbo sporting that name. Charlie Croker dumped his wife of many years to marry a 20-something trophy wife. Together they live in the most fashionable of Atlanta neighborhoods: Buckhead. In Buckhead the grass is greener and the air is cooler than in the southern and eastern sections of the town where the blacks live. As a matter of fact, it is cooler and greener than Chamblee-now called "Chambodia" because of all the Asians-and the lilly white suburbs that surround the city too. In describing Turmptime, Charlie's quail hunting preserve, Wolfe is accurate in his description of a Southern plantation. The Southern Plantation culture still thrives albeit as a recluse for the wealthy sportsman. But Tom Wolfe picked the wrong sport in my opinion. It is true that some hunters prefer quail. But the truly rich folk buy southern plantations so that they can hunt ducks. Each of the recent Tom Wolfe novels have added new phrases to the English language. The title to The Right Stuff has come to mean someone who has the wherewithal to conquer the toughest of assignments such as space flight. The major character in Bonfire of the Vanities is a "Master of the Universe". This is someone, like the protagonist millionaire bond trader, who is an absolute master of his own destiny and holds the world at bay. No such phrase jumps out at you when you read A Man in Full unless you consider the phrase "commuterburbs". These are the suburbs that ring all major American cities-Wolfe singles out Snellville, Georgia. These are featureless towns where the bourgeois classes live and make the daily, grueling commute to the big city to work. The other major character in A Man in Full is Fareek Fannon, Georgia Tech's star running back. He comes from the the squalor of a ghetto in southern Atlanta. Fareek faces a predicament that lets Wolfe further explore the delicate subject of race relations in Atlanta. Fareek is accused by a Georgia Tech coed of rape during the annual week of partying by black college students known as Freaknik. Freaknik is a week-long party in Atlanta where black college students from across the country gather to engage in the same sort of debauchery that white colleges students pursue in Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break. But while the occasions are similar, Wolfe points out that the in-your-face attitude of the black students makes the white Atlantans quite uncomfortable. Some white business leaders have sought to rein in the Freaknik festvitity. Of course, the blacks have said such crowd control strategies are rooted in racism. Wolfe illustrates this point perfectly when he describes a bare-midriffed black beauty wildly gyrated her body atop a car in stopped-dead traffic on Peachtree street. Her dance takes place in front of the staid all-white, Old South Piedmont Driving Club. The black woman dances while the rap lyrics "Ram-Yo-Booty" blare from the car's speaker. Regardless of how open-minded and liberal you purport to be, the pleasure gained from the lyrics "Ram-Yo-Booty" is not understood by anyone in the white community. Quite the contrary, this music suggests a militancy that threatens the same people. The novel's plot unwinds as that attorney Roger Too White and the Atlanta Mayor, Wesley Jordan, conspire with Charlie Croker to create a deal that will save Fareek Fanon, the football start, from the rape accusation and save the city from a resultant race riot. The black civic leaders and the white business interests want to keep race relations in Atlanta humming along in The Atlanta Way.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious, and Not Nearly Long Enough
Review: A rather sad thing has just happened to me. I finished Thomas Wolfe's "Man in Full" Why is that sad? Because for the past several weeks (with a full time job, kids, a house, numerous animals to care for I don't have a lot of time to read) I have totally lost myself in this book. At first the sheer size of it was daunting - most very long books become wearisome towards the end. Not so "A Man in Full". Wolfe has taken several plots, very different and apparently unrelated and alternated their development in relatively rapid cycles, as they progress to their inevitable convergence as the book comes to a close. Each sub-plot on its own would have made a good book. Wolfe's acidic tongue and flawless sense of satire ensures that. But to enjoy several sub-plots weaving seamlessly back and forth, wondering how on earth all these characters will somehow connect, is what makes this book so readable. This is one of those "laugh aloud" books. The characters, no matter how wicked or flawed, are totally entertaining. It is Thomas Wolff as I remember him in "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Electric Koolaid Acid Test". As I finished the last paragraph, I felt almost compelled to say "good bye" to all the characters I had come to know so well, so much did I feel a part of the story. If you have a lot of time you can probably read this book fairly quickly. Each story line moves quickly enough so that the reader is never bored. If you are like me, and have fairly limited reading time, don't worry. I actually was grateful not to have to rush through the book. And now I feel like I'm leaving a really fun party before I'm quite ready to do so! Thomas Wolff, you have done it again. What a fun and enjoyable read!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Arguably a good book.
Review: Tom Wolfe is arguably one of our best contemporary writers. His book "A Man in Full" reflects the arguably part. The story and the plot surrounding Charlie Crocker along with his ethical dilemas prove to be one of the highlights of the book. On the other hand, his focus on Conrad H.'s stoic obsession is hardly believable and bearable. All in all, it is a good book, but some of the characters need further depth and realism. Also, he has a tendency to drag certain eventas or actions for much longer than necessary. Then again his work is able to acomplish two main things almost flawlessly: First, he describes today's Atlanta Elite (and if you think it through, you can really see any modern cities high classes) down to the minor details and describing things only they would know. Second, he is able to prove that the values and principles guiding our society's actions are not only flexible, but able to bring the best of us when his spirit and morals are under trial.
Rating:
Summary: An Old School Fun Read
Review: OK - yes we do have kind of a deux ex machina ending. And yes, the characters do seem to fall together in a fairly (extremely) unlikely way. But so what?! That's the way the best Dickens and Twain novels worked too, if you'll remember. In that respect I found the book refreshingly "old fashioned" and incredibly fun to read. I also really liked the fact that a character could be so inspired by such an unusual philosophical school (the Stoics), as opposed to something more conventional like Budhism or Christianity, and to see where that takes us. My main criticism of the book is that it echoed Bonfire of the Vanities a little too closely -- Big City mayor gets into racial trouble at election time, a big speech is necessary to fix things, etc. But never mind that; I enjoyed this one a lot more than BOTV and definitely recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul
Review: In the eyes of the world, Charlie Croker (ex-football star), had it all, a position in the society of Atlanta, wealth, a young wife, a well staffed 29,000 acre plantation . But at 60 years of age, Charlie was in grave danger of losing it all. The bank notes were overdue (36 million) due on demand by the bank. He was told to liquefy his assets, which meant his plantation, his aircratfs, his Mercedes. Charlie didn't know where to turn, he was caught, there was no way out, or was there? On the west coast lived Conrad Hensley, married with two children. Conrad was very well respected by his co-workers but his wife and mother-in-law treated Conrad in a very demeaning manner. Nothing Conrad did was right and they were determined that he would never amount to anything. Conrad lived from paycheck to paycheck and one payday also received a pink slip, he was no longer needed. Charlie Croker's Global Foods was trimming the payroll and Conrad with his on going bad luck just got luckier. Events that Conrad had no control over seem to push him on the brink and he somehow found himself in prison. If you have ever had a car towed, you will appreciate this very hilarious train of events and become very compassionate towards Conrad. In the meantime in Atlanta, a pro football player was accused with date raping a daughter of a prominent family. Enter Charlie Croker, who was given an ultimatum, speak to this football player, do a press conference with the idea of showing the public that this was a tragedy that befalls popular athletes and that most of these athletes have many of these encounters where young girls push themselves into these situations. If Charlie agrees to this press conference the mayor of Atlanta will see to it that the Plantation Bank will get off his back about the bank notes. On the west coast an earthquake strikes the prison area and Conrad finds himself on the streets with a fellow inmate and ends up in Atlanta. He stumbles onto an elderly couple who rent him a room and in this room discovers "the book" that will change his and Charlie Croker's life. Charlie and Conrad meet when Charlie is recovering from knee surgery. Here is where both men have what you would call "an epiphany".
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover....
Review: I should have received a clue that this was going to be a pompous, over-written disaster of a book when the author's name was written in text 5 times taller than the title of the book. The characters were unlikeable, the story was barely enthralling and it was pretty evident at the end that either Wolfe had become bored or his editor had told him to wrap it up because I have seen less predictable and convenient endings on Scobby Doo. I bought this book for $1 at a yard sale and I barely think I got my money's worth. The most interesting thing for me were the descriptions of Atlanta, and even those Wolfe managed to get wrong in several places. What I wouldn't do to have the week it took me to read this drivvle back.
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal Read
Review: I found this story to be rich with characters, humor and insights into the old boy network. What a great weaving of multiple stories all neatly tied up at the end. This was a great body of work. I have to say that the performance of David Ogden Stiers made listening to this far more enjoyable than it would have been with an ordinary reader. Whether he was voicing an Atlanta good-old boy, a middle-aged black man or a young vietnamese he was right on and you truly believed you were listening to separate characters. Flawless delivery by Stiers.
Rating: 
Summary: overwritten mess
Review: As a huge fan of Tom Wolfe and an Atlantan, I am sad to report that this book is pointless, overwritten and lacking virtually any plot. After 500 plus pages of character development, we finally get to what passes for action. The problem is, you don't really care what happens to anyone and you know Wolfe can't possibly wrap this up in the final 200 pages. And he doesn't. He needs an epilogue for that. Did no editor dare tell the emperor he has no clothes? This is not to say there aren't passages of great Tom Wolfe writing, particularly when he delves into the life of his main character Charlie Croker. But please, Mr. Wolfe...you don't need to impress us with how much you learned driving around Atlanta neighborhoods.
Rating:
Summary: A mishmash of ideas in search of a connection
Review: As a longtime Georgia resident, I was eagerly anticipating how Tom Wolfe would portray Atlanta in his latest opus - and came away disappointed. It's not that he was overtly condescending toward our city (although he clearly doesn't offer it the same reverence as he does, say, New York), but if he was going to write an entire novel about Atlanta, I sure wish he'd picked a better novel. "A Man in Full" is a whole bunch of sprawling plot lines, themes and ideas without anything plausible to hold them together. It's almost as if Wolfe sat down and said, "OK, I know I want to write a book about Atlanta, and big business, and the philosophy of Epictetus, and prison life, and college football, and..." But he got started on the book way before he came up with any way to tie up all the loose ends. By the time you're getting to the end, you start to wonder "How the hell is all this going to come together?" as if you're watching a characteristically convoluted episode of "Seinfeld." The only difference is that the writers of "Seinfeld" usually managed to find a funny, ingenious way to wrap things up. Wolfe doesn't, and you end up feeling like you consumed 700 pages of manic build-up to get to a completely anticlimactic, unworthy ending. It doesn't help that, as a few other reviewers have stated, there's really nobody to root for here. Certainly not Charlie Croker, whom Wolfe seems to want to portray as a heroic throwback to the days "when men were men." Maybe Wolfe longs for those days, but Croker certainly doesn't inspire the same longing in the reader - he may have money and a storied past, but he's little more than an old fool. Somewhere in the midst of all these unsavory characters and unrelated themes and events there's a decent novel, but Wolfe approached his completely backwards. Those who aren't familiar with Atlanta probably won't get a picture that's a whole lot clearer from "A Man in Full"; those of us who are will just have to sit back and hope that the next time someone decides to write a massive novel about Atlanta, they make it a whole lot more entertaining.
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