Chamblee54

PG read A Man In Full, by Tom Wolfe, all 742 pages of the dern thing. Normally, there is a 400 page limit, but when your knee is torn up, and your computer torn down, you need diversion. AMIF can keep your attention intact, even as the plot gets more, and more, ridiculous.
AMIF is about Atlanta, the home of PG. Some of the action takes place in Chamblee, the namesake of this blog. PG’s mother grew up in Atlanta, and was a constant reader. AMIF was the last book she read, before her death in 1998. PG found a hardback copy at a yard sale, and began to read it when his knee went out. (He heard that at his mother’s knee, or some other low joint.)
A lot of what you need to know about AMIF can be learned from the picture included here. (The other pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” ). It is a shot of downtown, taken from where Freedom Parkway crosses Boulevard. (The hospital that birthed PG is across the street.) Two landmark buildings… The Peachtree Plaza Hotel, and 191 Peachtree … stick up like a peace sign. To the left of 191, the Georgia Pacific tower rises, out of the ashes of Loews Grand Theater. Except GP doesn’t fit in with the statement of the book designer, and is shrunk down to half it’s size. A halfsize copy of the Bell South tower is next to the Peachtree Plaza. The BS tower is a mile north in real life, behind the Fox Theater.
The text of AMIF is the same way… it is based on Atlanta, but poetic license is “liberally” applied. An example is a road trip made by the mayor ( based on a slimmed down Maynard Jackson), and his Morehouse buddy, Roger Too White. They start at City Hall, and cross Ponce de Leon, noting the role of that seedy boulevard as a racial borderline. They go down Piedmont, towards the park, and the Mayor says that the Northside is all uphill, and the expensive car goes up and up. In real life, the stretch of Piedmont between Ponce, and the park, is flat.
In one of the opening chapters, Roger Too White is stuck in Freaknik, trying to get to an appointment in Buckhead. The standard line about Freaknik… the Piedmont Driving Club crowd is upset because black kids are doing what white kids do… is trotted out. The racial divisions in Atlanta get lots of attention. This is a subject that can be blathered on about for another 742 pages, and still not make sense. The temptation is to say we have a yankee writer, trying to write southern gothic. The only trouble is, Tom Wolfe is from Virginia. He did spend a lot of time in New York. This is the opposite of the typical OTPerson, who moved here from Ohio, and  is occasionally  civilized by the patient natives.
The main character of AMIF is Charles Croker. He is a filthy rich developer, in debt to his eyes, with a quail hunting plantation, a trophy wife, a bum knee, and a half empty skyscraper in Cherokee County. The bank is threatening to kick him out on the streets. A well dressed Morehouse man lawyer offers him a way out of his troubles, but it involves betraying his longtime friend. Take race, sex, money, conspicuous consumption, mix well, cook for 742 pages in a well greased pan.
PG was about to give up, and skim over a chapter. This was when a former employee of Mr. Croker gets out of prison because of an earthquake. The jailbird, Conrad Hensley, winds up in Chamblee, living in an antique shop, and working for a home health care provider. Conrad … now known as Connie … is assigned to work for Mr. Croker. This leads to the conclusion of the story.
AMIF got 128 one star reviews at Amazon. Here are a few.
Amazing what a good publicist can do March 24, 1999 By A Customer
We’ve been had. The publicity machine surrounding Tom Wolfe is probably the real story here. And probably a lot more interesting than A Man in Full.
Oh dear me January 6, 2000 By A Customer
Peppered with Wolfe’s bizarre and laughable descriptions of burly male physique, A MAN IN FULL is a slow moving story filled with stock characters. Thank God that the universally panned BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, the movie, will prevent this from ever hitting the big screen.
Flat January 12, 1999 By h20pipe@swbell.net (usa)
What a bunch of liberal mish mash. A selfmade millionaire is made a laughing stock, while an escaped convict is held up the hero. Typical New Aged balogney. All form and no substance. I wish I could get my money back
Save your time, integrity and money/ March 11, 1999 By A Customer
All the depth of a baby pool . .
A Man in Full January 9, 2001 By Norwest (Port Lavaca, Texas United States)
I should have quit reading when he mentioned shooting quail with buckshot. The author apparently did no research to make this a credible story. The ending was deplorable. The characters are caricatures. The dialoque unreal. The verbose, stilted descriptions of clothing, architecture and furnishings added nothing unless you consider embellishment of the author’s ego worthwhile.. This will be my last Tom Wolfe book.