Charles Croker, a middle-aged, egotistical former college football star turned tycoon, finds his life turned upside down and the delicate racial balance of Atlanta threatened, when star running back Fareek Fanon, a product of the city's slums, is accused of raping an Atlanta aristocrat's daughter. Reprint. The setting is Atlanta, Georgia — a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000 acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt.Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system.And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek "the Canon” Fanon, a homegrown product of the city's slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city's delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates — Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker's deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages — Tom Wolfe's most outstanding achievement to date. Prologue: Cap'm Charlie 3(12) Chocolate Mecca 15(16) The Saddlebags 31(23) Turpmtine 54(29) Beige Half Brothers 83(16) The Suicidal Frezer Unit 99(24) In the Lair of the Lust 123(22) Hello Out There, 7-Eleven Land 145(20) The Lay of the Land 165(26) The Superfluous Woman 191(25) The Red Dog 216(14) This Is-Not Right! 230(25) The Breeding Barn 255(33) The Arrest 288(13) God's Cosmic Joke 301(16) The Rubber Room 317(26) Gotcha Back 343(24) Epictetus Comes to Da House 367(22) The Aha! Phenomenon 389(20) The Trial 409(23) Mai's Army 432(25) The Real Buckhead 457(20) Chambodia 477(28) The Deal 505(27) Gridiron Heroes 532(18) Starring Darwell Scruggs 550(12) Holding Hands 562(13) The Screen 575(17) The Spark of Zeus 592(15) Epictetus in Buckhead 607(15) The Bull and the Lion 622(20) Roger Black 642(20) The Manager 662(16) Epilogue: A Man of the World 678