Jack Finney

Author profile

born

October 02, 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The United States

died

November 14, 1995

gender

male

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery & Thrillers

About this author

edit data

Mr. Finney specialized in thrillers and works of science fiction. Two of his novels, "The Body Snatchers" and "Good Neighbor Sam" became the basis of popular films, but it was "Time and Again" (1970) that won him a devoted following. The novel, about an advertising artist who travels back to the New York of the 1880's, quickly became a cult favorite, beloved especially by New Yorkers for its rich, painstakingly researched descriptions of life in the city more than a century ago.

Mr. Finney, whose original name was Walter Braden Finney, was born in Milwaukee and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. After moving to New York and working in the advertising industry, he began writing stories for popular magazines like Collier's, The Satu...more Mr. Finney specialized in thrillers and works of science fiction. Two of his novels, "The Body Snatchers" and "Good Neighbor Sam" became the basis of popular films, but it was "Time and Again" (1970) that won him a devoted following. The novel, about an advertising artist who travels back to the New York of the 1880's, quickly became a cult favorite, beloved especially by New Yorkers for its rich, painstakingly researched descriptions of life in the city more than a century ago.

Mr. Finney, whose original name was Walter Braden Finney, was born in Milwaukee and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. After moving to New York and working in the advertising industry, he began writing stories for popular magazines like Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post and McCall's.

His first novel, "Five Against the House" (1954), told the story of five college students who plot to rob a casino in Reno. A year later he published "The Body Snatchers" (later reissued as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), a chilling tale of aliens who emerge from pods in the guise of humans whom they have taken over. Many critics interpreted the insidious infiltration by aliens as a cold-war allegory that dramatized America's fear of a takeover by Communists. Mr. Finney maintained that the novel was nothing more than popular entertainment. The 1956 film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was remade twice.

Mr. Finney first showed an interest in time travel in the short- story collection "The Third Level," which included stories about a commuter who discovers a train that runs between New York and the year 1894, and a man who rebuilds an old car and finds himself transported back to the 1920's.

He returned to the thriller genre in "Assault on a Queen" (1959) and tried his hand at comedy in "Good Neighbor Sam" (1963), a novel based on his experiences as an adman, played by Jack Lemmon in the film version.

In "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" (1968) Mr. Finney once again explored the possibilities of time travel. The dime of the title allows the novel's hero to enter a parallel world in which he achieves fame by composing the musicals of Oscar Hammerstein and inventing the zipper.

With "Time and Again," Mr. Finney won the kind of critical praise and attention not normally accorded to genre fiction. Thomas Lask, reviewing the novel in The New York Times, described it, suggestively, as "a blend of science fiction, nostalgia, mystery and acid commentary on super-government and its helots." Its hero, Si Morley, is a frustrated advertising artist who jumps at the chance to take part in a secret project that promises to change his life. So it does. He travels back to New York in 1882, moves into the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West and experiences the fabulous ordinariness of a bygone age: its trolleys, horse-drawn carriages, elevated lines, and gaslights. This year Mr. Finney published a sequel to the novel, "From Time to Time."

Mr. Finney also wrote "Marion's Wall" (1973), about a silent-film actress who, in an attempt to revive her film career, enters the body of a shy woman, and "The Night People" (1977). His other fictional works include "The House of Numbers" (1957) and the short-story collection "I Love Galesburg in the Springtime" (1963). He also wrote "Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories" (1983) about sensational events of the 19th century. (less)

combine editions
Books by Jack Finney

Average rating: 3.87 · 8,900 ratings · 948 reviews · 48 distinct works

	Invasion of the Body Snatchers 3.77 avg rating — 2,989 ratings — published 1955 — 31 editions	My rating:
	Time and Again 4.06 avg rating — 2,977 ratings — published 1970 — 22 editions	My rating:
	From Time to Time 3.67 avg rating — 1,091 ratings — published 1995 — 11 editions	My rating:
	About Time: 12 Short Stories by Jack Finney, Ross L. Finney 4.06 avg rating — 291 ratings — published 1986 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Three by Finney 4.01 avg rating — 147 ratings — published 1987	My rating:
	The Third Level 4.26 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 1950 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories 3.58 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 1983 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Marion's Wall 3.95 avg rating — 39 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Night People 3.68 avg rating — 37 ratings — published 1977 — 2 editions	My rating:
	I Love Galesburg in the Springtime 4.13 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 1963 — 2 editions	My rating:

More books by Jack Finney…

Quotes by Jack Finney

“Maybe I live in what is for me the wrong time.”
― Jack Finney

4 people liked it

“Haven't you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I heard so many people wish that they lived 'at the turn of the century,' or 'when life was simpler,' or 'worth living,' or 'when you could bring children into the world and count on the future,' or simply 'in the good old days.' People didn't talk that way when I was young! The present was a glorious time! But they talk that way now.

For the first time in man's history, man is desperate to escape the present. Our newsstands are jammed with escape literature, the very name of which is significant. Entire magazines are devoted to fantastic stories of escape - to other times, past and future, to other worlds and planets - escape to anywhere but here and now. Even our larger magazines, book publishers and Hollywood are beginning to meet the rising demand for this kind of escape. Yes, there is a craving in the world like a thirst, a terrible mass pressure that you can almost feel, of millions of minds struggling against the barriers of time. I am utterly convinced that this terrible mass pressure of millions of minds is already, slightly but definitely, affecting time itself. In the moments when this happens - when the almost universal longing to escape is greatest - my incidents occur. Man is disturbing the clock of time, and I am afraid it will break. When it does, I leave to your imagination the last few hours of madness that will be left to us; all the countless moments that now make up our lives suddenly ripped apart and chaotically tangled in time.

Well, I have lived most of my life; I can be robbed of only a few more years. But it seems too bad - this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can't we have it? ("I'm Scared")”
― Jack Finney, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now

tags: escape , escapism , escapist , modernity , nostalgia , past , present

3 people liked it

Polls

What SF novel would you love to see get adapted into a feature film (and done right of course...no Uwe Boll "masterpieces")

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

14 votes, 40.0%

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

12 votes, 34.3%

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

4 votes, 11.4%

Time and Again by Jack Finney

2 votes, 5.7%

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock

2 votes, 5.7%

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

1 vote, 2.9%

35 total votes

14 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: Travels Back in Time	62	223	Oct 07, 2009 10:55am
SciFi and Fantasy...: November Sci Fi Theme Book Nominations	124	210	Nov 03, 2009 11:30pm
The Alternative W...: SF 101: Intro Reading	43	24	Aug 17, 2010 07:51am
Audiobooks: Summer 2010	418	281	Sep 28, 2010 07:49am

More…