Rating: 
Summary: Amazing- Again.
Review: Tom Wolfe is the best writer of the last 20 years. This book once again confirms that fact. His character development is perfect. He's the man, plain and simple.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Tom Wolfe book ever.
Review: A Man in Full takes the Black-White struggle to coexist to a new level 10 years after The Bonfire of the Vanities. Wolfe again says what everyone is thinking and saying (behind closed doors because of politcal correctness). This book is a must read, as it is right on the mark on race relations in the late 90's
Rating: 
Summary: Great character development. Ending leaves you hanging.
Review: Tom Wolfe's ability to cronicle the American experience is evident in "A Man in Full". The characters and scenes are described such that the reader actually feels like he/she has been involve d in a Banks' Workout session or worked in a frozen food warehouse. I would have given it five stars if it had not been for the "Scooby Doo" ending. Having spent 700 pages with all the characters I felt cheated when two of the characters meet and fill in the blanks with a final conversation. However, I had a hard enough time carrying this book around with me and I would not have been able to travel with it had it been 1000 plus pages. The ending is not too great a price to pay for rich characters and vivid scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece!
Review: Wolfe demonstrates again his extrordinary talent for social observation, and his masterful command of the English language to translate these observations into characters and situations. Lively and poignant, at the same time extraordinarily funny. In many ways reminding of Proust.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, spellbinding, ever better than "Bonfire".
Review: It is amazing that Tom Wolfe can capture the essence of a city and its people and then wrap it all up in one big package to be suprized at the very end. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about different kinds of people and their diverse lifestyles. I will probably read it again and I am certainly recommending it to my friends. Definately the book of the '90's.
Rating:
Summary: In this novel, Wolfe won me over
Review: I was prepared to dislike this book. After all, Tom Wolfe has long had a certain smarmy arrogance about him, what with his tailored white suits and superior attitude. He has always impressed me as a kind of literary publicist for the very power structure that he (sometimes) purports to skewer in his books. I had, in fact, come to think of him in terms of the label that Alexander Cockburn applied to him years ago, "A philistine masquerading as a social critic." But I have to admit it: this book is nothing short of excellent. Wolfe has produced a highly crafted, gorgeously written page-turner, richly embossed with descriptive detail and enlivened with a plot filled with fascinating twists and turns. Of course, Wolfe returns to one of his favorite themes here, the American macho entrepreneurial mover and shaker, and what makes him tick. Many of his best sections, in fact, involve confrontations between powerful men in which the testosterone veritably flies off the page. What's particularly fascinating is that it never becomes clear (to me, anyway), just whether Wolfe is trying to lampoon American Manhood or in his own droll way, celebrate it. Perhaps both. Another aspect of the book that impressed me was the painstaking accuracy of Wolfe's usage of geographical and historical material. I can't speak for all of his Atlanta references, but in his discussions of various locations in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live, he was unerringly correct in terms of place names, how one places relates spatially to another, what the weather is like at this or that time or year, and an assortment of other details that many other writers annoyingly get wrong. Some readers will dislike the book as a work of literature because it is a "best-seller," i.e., it is highly lucid and accessible, and hence does not lend itself to "deconstruction" or other avant-garde exercises in literary voyeurism. To that, I say, BRAVO!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant writing, flawed structure and plot
Review: The book is alive with Dickensonian intensity and detail, and expands onto new turf Wolfe's mean spirited but comic vision of a materialistic America. But it is flawed in plot, structure and the development of characters as they respond to the events (such as they are) in the book. I spent most of the book entertained by Wolfe's powers of observation, but waiting with growing impatience for something significant to happen. When events reached their climax, I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Iconoclastic
Review: Above all, I liked it. It kept my attention, and was hilarious in places. Perhaps the best funny scene was the meeting at Coach McNutt's house, where the major protagonist, Charlie Croker, meets the All-American running back and his lawyer. Part of the amusement is the reaction to Mrs. McNutt, a sexy trophy wife, while she serves the powerful men. The story line meanders through various incidents-the workout meeting, where mighty but bankrupt Charlie is reduced to a sweating cripple by greedy bankers; the quail hunt, which shows the disdain of beautiful young women for powerful men; the meetings of the black Mayor and wannabe Roger Too White, who plan deft manipulations while striving to appear blacker than black to their "African American" constituents; the jail scene, where violence and hatred are uncovered, raw; and the equine climax in the breeding barn, which portrays sex at its lustiest. On and on through 700 pages these incidents are used to define the characters as stereotypical elements of the society that Wolfe disapproves. The characters, even Connie, the only good guy, remain stereotypes, but the skewering of ignorance, class-conscious ambition, and conspicuous consumption, which they depict is worthwhile and highly entertaining. Does Wolfe like anything? Well, he likes women as flesh, and he appreciates sensitive, sympathetic women, but he doesn't find many in Atlanta, nor in California. And he likes honesty, but doesn't find much of that either. The presentation of Stoicism as a rediscovered religion falls a little flat, as Wolfe himself recognizes. If Stoicism is to save the world, it will have to do so in individuals, as it did for Connie and for Charlie Croker. One can predict that feminists and gays will hate this book, and the less secure among American blacks and liberals will be insulted. Also bankers, lawyers, social climbers and other frivolous flotsam of modern society. But for my part, I appreciated a book that honors work and honesty while discarding material possessions and unfulfilling relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Great characterization; less than perfect plot
Review: In a Man in Full, Tom Wolfe attempts to chronicle the many problems people -- primarily men -- face in late 20th century America. The book documents the stories of a billionare real estate tycoon facing bankruptcy, a down-on-his-luck blue collar worker struggling to make ends meet, a midlevel bank employee tormented by his perpetual failure to advance in the corporate world, and an African American attorney attempting to balance his relations to the White corporate establishment while somehow improving his connection to "his people." Ever the meticulous journalist who studies his subjects exhaustively before writing, Wolfe does an excellent job developing these characters and their many problems. Also, he throws in some great scenes depicting such diverse events as a bank workout session, a forced horse breeding session, and a vivid prison show down. The book ultimately asks: "What is life all about, what are we really struggling to attain in this crazy world of ours?" Therefore, it is a book with meaning, a book that makes you think. As to the underlying story line that ties all the characters and events together, I have to say it could be better. The ending too could have been more thoroughly fleshed out. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the book for its excellent documentation of the problems people face in America today, its many well-crafted, entertaining scenes, and the questions it ultimately asks the reader to consider.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, it IS a masterpiece ...
Review: This is an extraordinary novel, definitely superior to "Bonfire of the Vanities," a book I regard highly. Without reading it, it would seem impossible to bring together such disparate themes as Stoic philosophy, the breeding of thoroughbred race horses, day-to-day life in jail, etc., etc., especially given Wolfe's eye for detail and extraordinary skill at presentation. I know (or knew) nothing about the breeding of horses, but I do know a good bit about jail. Wolfe is dead-on accurate. (I hasten to point out that I've never been incarcerated or arrested, but I've done a lot of jail-counseling.) At 742 pages, the book quite frankly did not seem long. I read it in just a few sessions. I can nit-pick it; I got a little tired of the way Wolfe showed off his knowledge of architecture, for example. Nevertheless, Wolfe is an extraordinarily talented writer, and I cannot but see that this book establishes him as the premier American novelist writing today.
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