Kemper's Reviews > Cadillac Jack

Treasure of the Rubbermaids 16: YUUUP!

The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.

When I was picking my next Rubbermaid Treasure to read, this one jumped out at me because Dan got me hooked on the A&E reality series Storage Wars. For those unfamiliar with the show, storage lockers with unpaid fees are auctioned off to bidders who only get a few minutes to look at the contents without going into the locker or opening any boxes. Some of these bidders are thrift store owners looking for stock and some are hustlers who make their living in the swap meet and flea market trade. While used clothing, furniture and tools make up the bread-n-butter of this second hand economy, what really gets all the bidders amped up is the possibility of finding valuables or rare collectibles that they can sell for a small fortune. Antiques, jewelry, coin collections, rare toys and other assorted bits of odd treasure are sometimes pulled out of the lockers and it’s that ‘JACKPOT!’ element that makes the show compelling.

Storage Wars and its spin-off Storage Wars: Texas are part of a bigger trend that capitalizes on everyone’s fantasy that Aunt Petunia’s collection of coffee cans you inherited are really worth a fortune or that vase you picked up at a garage sale for fifty cents dates back to the Ming Dynasty. Antique Roadshow, Pawn Stars and American Pickers all capitalize on this fascination with finding treasure among junk And if someone ends up with more trash than treasure, they get to be on Hoarders.

Larry McMurty’s publishers should think about re-releasing this book and doing some creative marketing to tap into this trend. Written in the mid-80s, the book’s narrator is Jack McGriff, a former rodeo cowboy from Texas turned ‘scout’ who makes his living by cruising America in his Cadillac and looking for valuables hidden in estate sales, flea markets and second hand stores. Jack loves buying objects like well made antiques or rare curiosities like the jewel encrusted hubcaps from one of Rudolph Valentino’s cars, but once he’s acquired something, he wants to flip it for a profit as quickly as possible so he doesn’t hang onto the things he buys. As a self-described superstar of the flea market circuit, Jack knows a variety of oddball traders and collectors all across the country.

Jack has journeyed to Washington D.C. to unload some merchandise and visit his rich friend Boog and his wife Boss. Jack seems to have the same desire to acquire women that he does for finding objects. He’s got two ex-wives in Texas, and openly lusts after Boss to Boog’s amusement. Then Jack starts a fling with a beautiful woman who owns an art gallery named Cindy.

Cindy is engaged and an unapologetic social climber who only wants a no-strings relationship, and Jack tries to keep her attention by proposing a western exhibit made up of cowboy boots that he’ll acquire, including the pair that Billy the Kid was wearing when he was killed. However, once Cindy starts making increasing demands on his time and attention, Jack becomes attracted to a single mother and antique dealer named Jean. Unwillingly sucked into D.C.’s social intrigue and batted about by strong willed women, Jack falls into a funk and begins questioning a life spent questing over oddities.

McMurty created a really interesting character in Jack McGriff, but then he just didn’t seem to know what to do with him. The best stuff in the book revolves around Jack’s stories of objects he’s found and the unique people he’s met in the process. There’s a lot of funny stuff in this, and when McMurty sticks with themes about the value we put on objects, the transitory nature of ownership and the types of characters who have built their lives around this, it’s a very good book.

However, far too little time is spent on those ideas and far too much is spent with Jack being a unreliable jerk to the women in his life yet somehow also putting up with far too much crap from them in the process.

For a guy who supposedly spends all his time drifting around looking for stuff, he spends the first half of this book in Washington D.C. dealing with overstuffed politicians and arrogant journalists. There’s an odd subplot concerning the outlandish idea that the objects of the Smithsonian are being sold off secretly while fakes are put on display that Jack seems like he’ll get involved with, but ultimately that just drifts by with no resolution or consequence.

When he finally does hit the road, it’s on a doomed quest to satisfy Cindy whose increasingly outlandish demands would make any sane man leave her at the nearest airport or bus station, yet Jack continues to play along for some reason.

It’s still an entertaining read with a unique main character, but more horse trading and less romancing would have made it a better book.