July 31, 2009. New Orleans, Louisiana.

Like any other tourist, he made his way east on Marlbourough Street and down Frederic Street and then walked along Shirley Street until he reached the Public Library. He had already heard about this curious place, but it was nothing like what he imagined. Like everything else in Nassau, it was tinier…and touched with the taint of…seediness. It was a circular building, no more than twenty feet in diameter, best Peepgass could judge, with seven or eight open cubicles along the circumference. In the cubicles were shelves of books along two sides and a window on the third. In the center of the circle was a small wooden enclosure where a rather bored brown-skinned librarian sat. From her post she could see into every cubicle, although she seemed to have no particular interest in doing so. The building, which was now close to 200 years old, had originally been built as the town jail. What were now library cubicles had originally been cells with barred windows and doors; and where now sat a librarian who could see into every cubicle had been a warden who could see into every cell. All at once it occurred to Peepgass—and probably no one else in Nassau that day—that 200 years ago, at the turn of the century, the particular prison had been the very latest in modern penology. All at once he froze, staring fixedly at this odd little room, and his spirits plummeted. Modern penology…he’d learn about modern penology, all right at the turn of this century, if he took a misstep in this little…overseas venture…But damn it, Peepgass, are you going to remain a wimp, a dork, a staff nerd until it’s too late to do anything about it? Are you going to keep your red dog chained up until PlannersBanc gives you a Steuben glass phoenix—which was already known, intramurally, as “getting the bird”—the bank was far too cheap to give retiring drudges something made of precious metal, such as a gold watch, anymore—are you going to wait until Lomprey or some other hunchback gives you the bird and waves bye-bye? That—your own willing self-imprisonment—would be a fate far worse than actual incarceration, is it not so?

Excerpted from A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Published by Random House, 1998, New York.