Title: Where's an editor when you need one?
Product review: Tom Wolfe is a great writer, but "A Man in Full" is not even a good book. This tale (not all that profound to begin with) could have been told in not even half the space. Wolfe has famously disparaged some of his contemporaries (notabley Mailer and Updike) for not "leaving the building," that is not getting out and observing how the world really works. Sorry, but Mailer and Updike were artists and "A Man in Full" is artless in the extreme. This is a thrilling ride for the first 250 pages or so ('The Saddlebags' chapter is brilliant), but, alas, there are over 500 pages after that, and only a dutiful reader will make it to the extremely disappointing end. This is an overwritten, extremely repetitious novel of, in the end, commonplace observations. This will not keep me from tackling "I Am Charlotte Simmons" in the near future, however.
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