Wolfe successfully developed his exaggerated style of social realism in his nonfiction works such as The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965), The Right Stuff (197-9), and From Bauhaus to Our House (1981). A Man in Full, although similar in many ways to The Bonfire of the Vanities, is a more .subtle book and has a new philosophical direction in its presentation of the ethical system of Stoicism. The character of Conrad, a kind of angel figure, is another new element. Conrad and Stoicism are presented respectively as a hero and a solution.

Wolfe sees his brand of highly detailed realism and documentation of sociological trends as following in the footsteps of Honore de Balzac, Emile Zola, Sinclair Lewis, and John dos Passos. He has also said he was influenced by the sociologist Max Weber and his writings on status as an essential part of human life. Critics have...