Like most "antique" collections, Larry McMurtry's eighth novel [Cadillac Jack] is actually two or three valuables and a whole lot of junk. This is especially disappointing because McMurtry is too good a novelist … to believe that dozens of one-dimensional albeit eccentric characters, a protagonist who exists only to concatenate these eccentrics, and a theme and plot that remain forever incipient constitute literary art.

Cadillac Jack McGriff, antique scout extraordinaire, has a recurring dream of driving backward down the highway of his life. This surreal element permeates the novel like a crazed Pac-man munching away at everything resembling sustained characterization and meaningful plot. Although he seems dedicatedly ignorant of most things, McGriff does know "the power of things." Just name your "thing," and this modern day picaresque prostitute will find it, buy it and sell it to you faster than a maniac auctioneer's spiel.

Jack McGriff, however, is no...