HOOK MAN SPEAKS

A one-armed man with a penchant for terrorizing lovers in parked cars is inexplicably elevated to the status of folk hero in Clark's muddled, disjointed first novel. As the book opens, the character known only as Hook Man is being interviewed by a folklorist named Dr. Brautigan, who takes the protagonist through his formative years, from his relationship with his father to the loss of his hand and the subsequent acquisition of his prosthesis. Brautigan then delves briefly into his subject's bizarre habit of frightening vulnerable lovers, but what's missing from the account is a coherent explanation of how Hook Man became a heroic figure beyond some vague references to America's growing love affair with violent outlaws. The romantic side of the story is no less strange, as Clark chronicles Hook Man's odd, ongoing relationship with a woman named Rosemary, who claims to have been served a fried rat by a well-known fast-food chicken franchise back in the '80s. The rest of the plot revolves around a trip Brautigan and Hook Man take to El Paso to interview an even sleazier figure named Axe Man, who delivers a bizarre monologue-cum-diatribe about America's fascination with evil. Clark, who died of liver and colon cancer at the age of 31, shortly before this book was published, manages to connect the dots in the individual scenes, with one noteworthy exception dealing with Hook Man's sexual initiation. But the sum of the parts is frequently incoherent and inexplicable, a marginal treatise that sheds little light on its subject. (Oct. 9)