Herbert Richman

Herbert Richman is a fitness-center tycoon, Marsha’s husband, and a prominent figure in the social and business circles surrounding Charlie Croker. The novel presents him less through private history than through encounters: his recollection of a weekend at Turpmtine and his easy participation in the Wilson Lapeth exhibition opening. In both settings, his position is visible in the access he enjoys and in the company that gathers around him.

Identity and Social Position

Herbert is introduced at the Lapeth opening as a man whose wealth gives him a place among Atlanta’s influential guests. He sits near Raymond Peepgass, while his wife, Marsha, is farther away at another table. The gathering brings together art-world figures and people with money and influence, including Julius Licht, a wealthy lawyer, and Colonel Popover, whose catering business serves the banquet. Herbert’s presence places him among the people whose casual conversations can become openings for business.

His social position is connected to Marsha’s earlier life as an art-gallery proprietor. She met Herbert while running the Alma, a contemporary-art gallery she had opened on Ponce de Leon. The gallery struggled, and Peepgass arranged a $100,000 loan from PlannersBanc to help it. Marsha later married Herbert, after which repaying that loan was no longer a problem. The sequence links Herbert’s marriage to a small but revealing chain of cultural enterprise, credit, and wealth: Peepgass’s act of assistance helped Marsha sustain the gallery, and the gallery was where she encountered the man who became her husband.

The Weekend at Turpmtine

Herbert had recently spent a weekend at Charlie Croker’s Turpmtine Plantation. At the exhibition banquet he recounts how Croker, whom he describes as a throwback, held forth on race and gay rights. Herbert had heard and seen enough of the plantation host to describe him as a Good Old Boy taking on the world. The account gives the reader a view of Croker through a guest’s recollection, rather than through Croker’s own expansive self-image.

The setting makes that recollection pointed. Turpmtine is Croker’s vast southwest Georgia property, with 29,000 acres of forest, fields, and swamp, as well as horses, mules, dogs, buildings, and a mile-long asphalt landing strip. Against this display of ownership and rural power, Herbert’s report of Croker’s opinions turns the weekend into more than a country retreat: it becomes evidence of how Croker performs his identity before visitors. Herbert does not offer a full account of the visit, but the subjects he singles out—race and gay rights—show what made Croker memorable enough to become banquet conversation.

At the Lapeth Opening

At the opening, Herbert and Julius Licht discuss Croker after learning that he has bought a table at the event. Licht says he would like to hear what Croker thinks of the show; when Licht characterizes it as Wilson Lapeth’s coming-out show, Herbert laughs and agrees that he would like to hear Croker’s reaction too. The exchange makes Herbert a curious spectator of Croker’s presence: he is interested in the man’s opinions, but the conversation also treats Croker as a provocative figure whose response might entertain or inform the room.

Herbert’s own manner in the banquet conversation is comparatively understated. When Licht points out Colonel Popover and remarks on how quickly the caterer has moved, Herbert observes that Popover is speedy in business as well as in motion: he has the banquet trade in town locked up. Herbert then asks Peepgass what Popover might earn from an event like this. Licht supplies the estimate—about $100 per guest for 400 guests, with expenses perhaps half the gross, leaving roughly $20,000 to $25,000. Herbert listens as Peepgass nods along. The exchange turns a formal cultural event into an informal examination of its economics.

Business, Recognition, and Narrative Role

Herbert’s question gives Peepgass an opening to join a conversation with Herbert and Licht. For Peepgass, who is eager to be recognized among powerful people, being asked for his view matters even though he has no informed estimate to offer. He experiences the attention as a sign that Herbert regards him as an equal. By the end of the exchange, Peepgass has obtained the men’s addresses and telephone numbers, and has promised to follow up about something that might interest them. Herbert thus participates in the social mechanism through which a brief conversation can become a possible business connection, without the scene establishing that any specific deal follows.

The contrast between the plantation weekend and the banquet sharpens Herbert’s function in the novel. At Turpmtine, he is a guest who can report on Croker’s talk and behavior; at the Lapeth opening, he is a well-placed participant whose attention can confer social value on Peepgass. His scenes connect wealth, cultural patronage, and business networking without making him the center of any of them. Through Herbert, the novel shows how elite standing is enacted not only through possessions or formal titles but also through access, conversation, and the small gestures by which one person is invited into another’s circle.