A Man In Full

Content Warning: The source material contains references to sexual assault, racism, and torture. Additionally, the source material uses outdated, offensive terms for LGBTQIA people, Jewish people, and other groups of people; these terms are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

One of the two protagonists of the novel, Charlie Croker is 60 years old at the start of the narrative. Charlie is overwhelmingly defined by his physicality, with the novel often referring to his “massive back, his broad shoulders, his prodigious forearms” (6). A former college football star, Charlie is tall and weighs 235 pounds. Apart from his physique, he is also shown to be enormously proud of his quail plantation, Turpmtine, which to him symbolizes the old Southern order of manly men couched in nature and admired by domesticated women. Charlie is married to 28-year-old Serena, with whom he has a toddler daughter, Kingsley. He also has three older children with his ex-wife, Martha.

As the narrative begins, Charlie is heading toward the biggest crisis of his life: His real estate business is tanking, he owes the bank half a billion dollars, and his old football knee injury is acting up. Charlie also feels increasingly thwarted by Serena, who he thinks patronizes him as if he were a doddering fool. Reacting to these stresses, Charlie holds on even tighter to his wealth and status, preferring to lay off workers at his plant rather than submit his quail plantation to the bank. These actions initially characterize Charlie as unsympathetic and selfish.

In its early pages, the narrative satirizes Charlie’s male vanity and thirst for status. However, as the plot unfolds, Charlie is confronted with a difficult decision that tests his core values. If Charlie endorses Fareek, the mayor-backed Black athlete accused of rape by his friend’s daughter, he may get a reprieve from the loan. However, this would be dishonest since Charlie does not know Fareek. Unable to decide, Charlie goes for knee surgery. His physical frailty as well as his regret of his past life choices begin to soften the edges of Charlie’s character. When Charlie meets Conrad Hensley, it marks a spiritual revival for the real-estate tycoon. Influenced by Conrad’s strength of character and belief in Stoicism, Charlie redeems himself at the end of the novel by willingly giving away his assets to the bank. He also refuses to endorse Fareek on the principled grounds that he does not know enough about the young man. At the same time, Charlie makes it clear that he is not suggesting that Fareek is capable of rape. Having given up his fortune, Charlie walks away with Conrad to spread Stoic philosophy around the country.

Charlie’s character arc is a dynamic one, marked by his transformation from a man dominated by the lust for sex and status to a near-ascetic figure. Despite his flaws, his character arc shows his great capability for change. Charlie also represents the hollowness of the real estate boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Developers invested heavily in commercial properties, with demand outpacing supply. However, the tide turned by the mid-1990s, leaving developers like Charlie with unprofitable projects like Croker Concourse.

Twenty-three-year-old father of two Conrad Hensley is the second protagonist of the novel and its moral center. The working-class Conrad is married to his high-school sweetheart, Jill. At the beginning of the novel, he works at the freezing and packing plant of Charlie’s food business in Oakland, California. Described as good-looking in a delicate way, Conrad is slim and powerful, and his most brutish feature is his forearms and hands, which have grown muscular from manual labor. Conrad is shown to be forward-thinking and idealistic, shunning the markers of toxic masculinity in the novel, such as music with violent, objectionable lyrics and a nihilistic attitude. Although, like nearly all the other men in the novel, Conrad feels lust for young, attractive women, he does not act on the impulse, because he is married. The narrative implies Conrad’s upbringing plays a role in his love for structure: His parents were neglectful and followed a Bohemian lifestyle.

Conrad’s plans to buy a condo for his family are thwarted when he is laid off. The following chain of events places Conrad in increasingly dangerous situations, landing him in jail. The situations act as trials for Conrad’s character, much as the labors of Hercules proved the mettle of the hero in Greek mythology. Conrad sticks to his principles even when his situation is dire, such as standing up to a dangerous sexual predator in the correctional facility where he is incarcerated. In the prison, Conrad discovers the writings of the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus and feels validated about his life choices. Conrad increasingly gives in to faith in Epictetus’s muse, Zeus, thus transforming from a man who relies excessively on structure to someone who is comfortable with uncertainty. Although Conrad does not achieve financial success or marital happiness as a result of his choices, he does gain freedom from material values. At the end of the novel, he and Charlie follow their passion for spreading the philosophy of Epictetus.

Since Conrad evolves over the course of the narrative, his character arc is dynamic. He also serves as a foil for Charlie, with certain physical markers, such as their enormous forearms, linking the two men.

One of the major characters in the novel, Raymond Peepgass is a 46-year-old loan officer with PlannersBanc at the start of the narrative. Peepgass is described as good-looking in a soft, boyish way; seen through Martha’s eyes, Peepgass’s clothes are “a mixture of the slightly seedy and the slightly gaudy” (569). Although Peepgass is clever and good with math, his weakness is that he views the world mostly in terms of numbers. When he is out for dinner with Martha, “his facile head for figures” constantly adds up the cost of the order, as well as the money Martha may bring him (570). Peepgass is also shown as overtly concerned with wealth and status, much like Charlie. In fact, he is portrayed as a foil to Charlie, desiring the same things that Charlie does and aspiring to Charlie’s lifestyle. After Charlie leaves Martha for Serena, Peepgass is inspired to commit infidelity with the young and beautiful Sirja. However, the affair proves disastrous, causing Peepgass’s marriage to Betty to blow up and landing Peepgass in financial trouble.

The fact that emulating Charlie has devastating results for Peepgass clearly indicates that their paths are not the same. However, ignoring the signs, Peepgass goes on letting his inner “red dog” loose, his euphemism for pursuing wealth without morality, as he thinks Charlie does. Peepgass uses unethical means to form a syndicate to purchase Charlie’s land and begins to woo Martha solely to gain wealth and status. As the plot proceeds, Peepgass emerges as an antagonist. By the end of the novel, Peepgass is married to Martha, with access to her wealth and mansion, but his plans for the syndicate have been squashed, and Peepgass has been fired from PlannersBanc. By juxtaposing Charlie’s and Peepgass’s arcs, the novel suggests that Peepgass cannot achieve the success of Charlie, who built a fortune from scratch and abdicated it in a moment. Peepgass has a static character arc since he does not learn from his mistakes. Further, using the animal metaphors from Epictetus’s philosophy, he represents the lowly fox, the man who lies and manipulates others to achieve his ends.

Roger White II, a lawyer in Atlanta, is 42 at the start of the novel. One of the novel’s major point-of-view characters, Roger is articulate, handsome, and devoted to dressing well. He wears sharply tailored, expensive business suits, drives a Lexus that costs $75,000, and regularly attends “white” or Eurocentric cultural events around town. Roger lives in a mansion in the elite Black neighborhood of Nisky Lane and is happily married to Henrietta, with whom he has two teenage children. To his Black peers, Roger’s taste, manner, and lifestyle suggest that he is trying to assimilate into white culture. Thus, his surname “White” makes him a target of teasing. His Morehouse collegemates often refer to him as “Roger Too White.”

Roger’s transformation involves growing comfortable with his Black identity. In tandem, he gains acceptance among fellow Black people. Thus, the narrative maps his journey from being Roger Too White to “Roger Black” (690). Another significant aspect of Roger’s character arc is that his professional and personal development proceed in tandem. The more visibility he gains in public, the more comfortable he feels in his identity. At the start of the novel, Roger tends to assume poorer Black neighborhoods are dangerous, and he is put off by Fareek’s vocabulary. However, pursuing the Fareek case brings Roger close to Wes Jordan, the mayor, and places Roger in solidarity with Black communities. For instance, he attends a church meeting in which an old Southern spiritual is being sung. Roger feels moved by the song, which connects him to his history and gives him hope. These situations help Roger feel whole. By the novel’s end, Roger can understand why his wife hates him dragging her to white cultural events. Even though it is hinted Roger is being corrupted by the lure of power, he remains a largely positive character. Roger is a round, three-dimensional character with a dynamic arc.

The only woman character with a point of view, Martha is 53 at the start of the novel. Male characters often describe Martha uncharitably as having a thick neck and back while simultaneously noting she must have been very beautiful when she was young. Peepgass observes that Martha is a handsome woman, suggesting that Martha is actually good-looking and the views of male characters are colored by gender bias. Martha is a sympathetic character in the novel. Not only is she shown to have sacrificed her ambition to pursue medicine to support Charlie’s career, but she also does not despise Charlie despite his poor treatment of her. When Peepgass tries to get Martha to revel in Charlie’s misery, she ignores him. At the end of the novel, when Charlie seems to have wrecked his life, Martha cries in sympathy for him.

Martha’s character offers insight into the social pressures faced by middle-aged women. Martha notes that her friends disappeared when she divorced Charlie since she was considered socially irrelevant without a man. Martha frequently thinks of herself as a ghost or invisible. This contextualizes her attempts to conform to beauty standards and start dating again: She knows the only way to be socially visible in Atlanta’s high society is to be seen with a man. Once Martha begins to be seen in public with Peepgass, her social capital rises immediately, leading to her ultimate decision to be with him although she knows his motivations are financial. Martha and Charlie are depicted as each other’s double: Much as Charlie shares his powerful forearms with Conrad, both Martha and Charlie are known for their strong backs. Additionally, they are both steeped in the same Southern values, getting scandalized at homoerotic art and treating their staff in a patronizing manner. Instead of blaming Charlie for the breakdown of their marriage, Martha grows bitter toward Serena, thinking of her disparagingly as the “boy with breasts” (209). As the novel ends, Martha is married to Peepgass, and they live together in her lavish mansion at Buckhead.

Serena is 28 years old at the start of the novel, married to Charlie, and mother to 18-month-old Kingsley. She is described as exceedingly beautiful, with a slim figure, large periwinkle blue eyes, and a thick mane of dark hair. Serena’s depiction in the text is highly sexualized, with Charlie describing her as bursting out of her chemise or wearing a “little black dress that made her seem […] naked” (156). Charlie suggests that all there is to Serena is her physical beauty since his attraction toward her has already begun to fade. Charlie also speaks of Serena’s work disparagingly, terming the art seminar she held at his office “pure bullshit.” Serena is presented as a femme fatale, the trope of the beautiful yet destructive woman. However, the truth is Serena was only in her early twenties when she met Charlie, impacting the power balance between the two. It was Charlie, then in his late fifties, who pursued the woman over three decades younger than him.

Despite the stereotyped portrayal, Serena is shown to be no pushover. She reprimands Charlie when he makes social gaffes, stands up to him, and late in the novel, tells him what she believes is the truth about Elizabeth’s accusations. Thus, Serena is shown to be strong-willed. She represents the younger generation, while Charlie represents outdated values.