his friends, and clients. There is a big house, a guesthouse, a gun house,
stables for fifty-nine horses, shelter for hunting wagons with shock absorb-
ers and fine leather seating, accommodations for countless dogs, servants’
cabins, and not least, a ‘‘Snake House’’ with walls covered in snakeskins
and a large glass box for live specimens, all vipers. All structures, inside and
out, are designed and embellished only with the best accoutrements New
York and other entrepôts of luxury purvey or skilled craftsmen may fashion
from local hardwoods.
In Atlanta’s most prestigious suburb (to the north, naturally), Buckhead,
Charlie, his gorgeous new wife, their baby, and a company of live-in ser-
vants occupy a towering mansion of stone surrounded by many shady acres
and ever-primped gardens. All this lies within a wall. The winding drive-
way is marked by stone pillars, and atop these are stone avians in flight,
so outsized only country folk and wealthy sportsmen can identify them as
quail. Charlie gets to Turpmtine from Buckhead via a private airport nearby,
where he keeps a small fleet of jets, a giant Gulfstream- his personal one.
On the- Charlie keeps a flying office. His desk is the same highly pol-
ished, burled wood that adorns Turpmtine, and on the wall opposite is the
possession he prizes second only to his Baker plantation: N. C. Wyeth’s
painting of Jim Bowie’s last moment at the Alamo. On another lush ave-
nue in Buckhead, meanwhile, Charlie’s ex-wife lives in a mansion nearly as
huge as his new one. Once Charlie’s own abode, it is now part of his divorce
payoff, in addition to what ordinary people would call staggering monthly
emoluments, which permit the ex to pursue yoga, restaurants, and high cul-
ture downtown.
Wolfe loads page after page, chapter after chapter, with intimate descrip-
tions of the shapes and contents of offices, airplanes, houses, and more—
the stuff that signifies power, prestige, comfort, and quality. If this were not
enough, other denizens of haute Atlanta not only do other scenes but dis-
cuss the politics and poetics of high art and male sartorial presentation.
Roger White is Wolfe’s master aesthete. A partner at one of the city’s oldest
and most powerful law firms, Wringer, Fleasom & Tick, he exudes knowl-
edge and finesse. (Beginning with the name of the law firm, one might
think Wolfe too cute. There is also an architect named Peter Prance who
flatters clients’ megalomania. A slimy, scheming accountant is Peepgass. A
menacing prison bully is Rotto. On the other hand, Wolfe may have found
monikers no less outrageous in any telephone directory or court docket.)
Roger, also known as Roger Too White, is a light-complexioned African
American, a Morehouse man, fraternity brother to the incumbent mayor,