It’s been 25 years since Tom Wolfe published “A Man in Full,” the novel in which an Atlanta good ol’ boy, Charlie Croker, sees the high times grind to a halt as the reserves of cash and goodwill so long extended to him finally run dry. Eventually, even his allies turn. “His botching things was malfeasance. It made them look so goddamned bad!” Wolfe wrote of Croker’s fleeing friends. “Half a billion! Now his heedless deadbeat squandering was making them all look like fools! Suckers! Patsies!”
