Reviewers can't seem to help themselves from comparing Handling
Sin to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning A
Confederacy of Dunces. An intelligent, phenomenally funny book,
Handling Sin takes its readers on a rollicking modern
Southern odyssey, following the reluctant adventures of insurance
salesman Raleigh Whittier Hayes. Author Michael Malone, head writer for
the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, exhibits incredible
mastery of the novel form, navigating the story's maze of surprise
twists with such boisterous alacrity that readers have very little chance
of losing their way at any time from start to finish.
Raleigh Hayes considers himself to be the only rational person, other
than his Aunt Victoria, in the whole motley crew of the extended Hayes
family. The Hayeses seem to have a genetic propensity for living life
to its reckless fullest, courting diabetes (and inevitable loss of limbs),
stroke (which left first his grandfather and then an uncle physically
infantilized), and heart disease (another uncle died while fielding a
fly ball in a semi-professional baseball game in high summer) with every
choice they make. Raleigh himself holds to a sensible diet, jogs regularly
to stay fit, and insures himself to the gills with an eye toward life's
inevitable outcome. His relatives steadfastly deny his offers of
insurance, refusing to jinx themselves by acknowledging death's certainty.
When he opens a fortune cookie with the unpleasant message that "You
will go completely to pieces by the end of the month," he has no idea of
what the fates have in store for him in that short span of time. Events
quickly conspire to turn his carefully sane life topsy-turvy, beginning
with his ailing elderly father's "escape" from the local hospital in the
company of a young black girl. Earley Hayes, a defrocked minister who
left Raleigh and Raleigh's mother years ago to marry a parishioner he'd
gotten pregnant, leaves a message full of mystifying directives for his
eldest son. Raleigh is to find Jubal Rogers, give this mystery man five
thousand dollars and ask him to come to New Orleans. He should find his
wastrel half-brother Gates and bring him, too. He must bring Grandma
Tiny's trunk and the family bible, buy a cabin (where Earley wants to be buried) from longstanding family
enemy Pierce Jimson, steal the bust
of feud-originator PeeWee Jimson from the town library, and, oh yes,
bring a gun.
The flummoxed Raleigh at first has no inclination to follow his father's
incredible orders, but Aunt Victoria briskly gets him moving on what will
be a very long and very strange road to New Orleans. Accompanied (or
kidnapped) by his childhood friend Mingo Sheffield, Raleigh buys, borrows
and steals the requested items and sets off to find his father. Travelling
in increasingly unique vehicles, and meeting and acquiring quirky new
road companions (including a very pregnant teenager, a master criminal,
and a jazz man), Raleigh struggles to maintain his precious equanimity
in a world he can no longer predict. While at home his wife appears to
have become a left-wing political radical with an astonishing following,
Raleigh too begins to undergo a transformation that will leave him a
better and happier man at the end of his quest.
Even the walk-ons in Handling Sin provide
moments of high hilarity. Michael Malone shows a genius for characterization
too seldom seen in modern literature. This novel is a bubbly delight
that catches the reader with perfectly rendered moments of touching sadness
nestled in between the laughs. Malone's deft hand makes Handling
Sin one of the most perfect comic novels in recent years.