Rag Man By Pete Hautman
Simon and Schuster/$23
"Can a single act change who you are?" The mildly uncreative tagline Hautman delivers for his ninth novel digests like an overdone nine-dollar steak. Maybe that's not completely fair. Let's just say it reads much like a late night movie on the Lifetime channel. You know you've seen the themes, characters, plot developments and ending before in some other mid-budget mishap, but never the less you lack the moral fiber to change the channel or, in this case, put Rag Man down.
Mack MacWray is a ragman. Spending most of his life in garment factories, MacWray has the personality of a dripping faucet. He is the epitome of the "nice" guy who, no matter how much he tries to puff out his chest and grit his teeth, will inevitably be trampled by the slick, smooth talking cobras of Corporate America. That is, of course, until Lars Larson, King Cobra, persuades MacWray to borrow almost half a million dollars from the bank and his in-laws nest egg to start their own garment business. When Larson runs off to Cancun with the dough, the plot gets really tasty.
There's the Columbo-inspired sneaky cop, the buxom femme fatal, even a mouse-like secretary, all of whom serve to make this soap opera mystery complete. Sound like a sequel to the movie version of Clue? Well, it's not as quirky but equally as addictive.
Infidelity, murder and sex, oh my! Take a healthy amount of stock characters and pour them into a bowl, then add some plot lines that are past their "sell by" date. What do you get? An unhealthy but digestible meal the likes of which Richard Simmons would smack you over the head for eating.
But who listens to kinky-haired health gurus? Read on, because when you boil it all down, sometimes you just need to read about a little infidelity, murder and sex to make real life a little less "fat-free."
—Mark Walker
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2002.