Review: The Honest Rainmaker
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything that wasn’t pop psych, econ, or self-development related, so I decided it was time to crack open something more akin to a novel.
The Honest Rainmaker is a non-fictional work, but it’s as close to fiction as one can get. I’d say about 75% of the story is fictional, but since it comes in the form of quotations from the protagonist, Colonel Stingo, it beats the non-fiction test by a nose (that pun is pretty funny if you know what this book is about).
This book was the first by A. J. Liebling that I’ve ever read, but based on the quality of it, I’ll have to pick up another one soon. If you’re afraid of 5 dollar words, don’t pick up this book. If you think that humans are naturally honest and considerate, you should probably pass as well.
The book was actually created from a series of short stories published by Liebling in The New Yorker. Throughout, he recounts his conversations with Colonel Stingo (AKA James MacDonald), a long-time sportswriter for several papers, and a self-denying con man who may or may not have pulled off some of the most creative cons ever. Stingo regularly mixes times and places casting a shadow of doubt over everything he says, but were a single word of it to be true, then he is potentially the most honest con man to have ever lived. Each of his schemes relies not on trickery, but simply on the laws of probability written into poorly understood contracts with “the boobs” (his name for everyone on the other side of these schemes).
Interestingly, the kind of schemes espoused by the Colonel throughout the book are similar to many of the things perpetrated today through the internet (and “health clubs”). I would encourage anyone with an interest in not being deceived by the hidden hand of chance to pick up this book and read it closely.
