Tom Wolfe's 1998 novel 'A Man in Full' is very close to being an American homage to Charles Dickens in style. Wolfe himself describes his writing style as journalism-based fiction. I think this means the book's fictional characters and intertwined plots which spin around each other must be based on real life with the names changed to mask what were real people and events. The various settings - warehouses, prisons, City Hall, museums, mansions, banks, restricted membership clubs, poor and wealthy neighborhoods - definitely seem real!

The book is a widescreen look at Atlanta, Georgia - the way politics and business interests carefully hookup and breakup. The discomfort of forced alliances between the remnants of White rich good ol' boys still living the antebellum life and the more modern Black politicians and White businessmen is satirically described. Everyone must still handle the rich good ol' boys gently because of their lingering influence on politics and journalists and other social spheres.

The world of power in 1998 Atlanta is one fueled by money - and entirely controlled by men. Women are all spousal trophies, whether they are ex, current, or future (daughters). The one and only thing disturbing the usual and customary reliance on money to determine the pecking orders of powerful interests is the friction of Race interactions, ever present in America and especially the South during this era. In this book, a popular college football player who is Black is accused of raping a wealthy man's daughter during a party. Inman Armholster is the head of a chemicals conglomerate and very likely the richest man in Georgia. Elizabeth, his daughter claims Fareek Fanon, top athletic of Georgia Tech, raped her.

But there's much more!

Charlie Croker is at the center of what happens in the book. He is a good ol' boy, owner of a plantation, factories, warehouses, and a jet. He is a real estate mogul. Or, he was. He has borrowed too much money to finance the building of a financial center away from Atlanta. The finished office buildings and supporting structures did not fill up with bankers and other finance-related businesses as the economy slowed down when the center opened. Renters are not showing up. Charlie can't believe the lenders are threatening to take his plantation, paintings and other furnishings, his factories and his jet. Politicians and bankers used to stand up respectfully when he entered rooms. Now, they are openly despising his good ol' boy lifestyle and mannerisms along with tittering at his money problems.

Various politicians, lawyers and bankers begin to circle Croker as the rumor of his bankruptcy begins to be known. The smell of financial blood in the water excites rather than dismays these fellows!

Spoiler

One group, a mixture of Georgia Tech coaches, lawyers and Black politicians, hope to pressure Croker into supporting Fareek's claim of innocence. Croker is a well-known Southern cracker and friend of Armholster. If he does this, the bank will extend his loan. But it means putting his entire life under someone else's control and his friendships will be at risk.

Another thread in the story does not seem remotely a part of the drama in Atlanta. Eventually it connects with the struggle between the 1 percenters of Atlanta. It might seem like a weird and improbable join, and it is, but having known some wealthy folk and their lifestyles, I know this happens. Conrad Hensley, a warehouse worker in Oakland and a married father of two, makes some terrible decisions. He is a poor man, and his poverty exacerbates his mistakes exponentially. He finds himself in prison.

Wolfe writes of society, people and politics with the tip of his tongue slightly protruding rather than tucked into his cheek in controlled laughter. One can sense his slight shock that this stuff he is fictionalizing for us in his novels or revealing in his nonfiction books is true to real life behind the curtain of masculine power and politics. I no longer wonder at how journalists become cynical and yet still fascinated by human nature.