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Finn

by Jon Clinch (Goodreads Author)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 1,529 ratings · 444 reviews

In this masterful debut by a major new voice in fiction, Jon Clinch takes us on a journey into the history and heart of one of American literature’s most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn’s father. The result is a deeply original tour de force that springs from Twain’s classic novel but takes on a fully realized life of its own.

Finn sets a tragic figure loose...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published March 11th 2008 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published February 1st 2007)

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Dec 05, 2007 Grace rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: strong stomached fiction lovers

Shelves: 2007

I usually have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to fiction. In television and movies, I can handle most anything and am not really bothered by violence, gore, or abuse. Because I don't see pictures when I read, this is even more the case with books than with visual media--give me the nasty stuff, I can take it.

Jon Cinch's Finn, however, bothered me. The book is not supremely graphic in its gore, but it does contain multiple murders, one of which includes body dismemberment, and the sexual a...more I usually have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to fiction. In television and movies, I can handle most anything and am not really bothered by violence, gore, or abuse. Because I don't see pictures when I read, this is even more the case with books than with visual media--give me the nasty stuff, I can take it.

Jon Cinch's Finn, however, bothered me. The book is not supremely graphic in its gore, but it does contain multiple murders, one of which includes body dismemberment, and the sexual abuse of both an adult and a child, and something about how these scenes were written stayed with me. So before I say anything else, take that to heart--it's violent, and the violence, for whatever reason, stuck with even my hardened heart.

That being said, it's a hell of a book. The task Cinch sets for himself is not an easy one. While remaining true to events and characters portrayed in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Cinch tells the story of Huck's ne'er do well alcoholic father, "Pap" Finn (who even in Cinch's book is never given a first name). Moving back and forth in time, Cinch weaves the threads of Finn's strange and horrific childhood, his early relationship with Mary, Huck's escaped/stolen slave mother, his loss of Huck to the Widow Douglas, Mary's murder, and eventually Finn's own untimely death.

It has been a long time (two decades, perhaps) since I've read Twain's books, so I don't remember all of the details surrounding Pap Finn, but it seems that Cinch works into his narrative explanations for things that go unexplained in Twain's own work, such as the discovery of Pap Finn's body in a whitewashed room with walls covered in bizarre charcoal drawings (these drawings are done by Finn himself as he descends into madness after murdering Mary). What he does not try to do, however, is take on Twain's tone (as Alexandria Ripley did--poorly--in her less successful Gone With the Wind sequel, Scarlett). Perhaps because he doesn't spend much time trying to write the same characters on which Twain focused (Huck in particular), Cinch has no need to imitate Twain's style of writing, and I think the book is better for it.

Cinch writes Pap Finn to be as bigoted, mean, and drunk as Twain's supporting character, but fleshes him out in his own voice, making him a real character with a past and reasons for his horrible actions, rather than just a foil for Huck. This (albeit limited) sympathy for Finn, as well as Cinch's original characters, is the strength of the novel. The places where Cinch overlaps with Twain (Judge Thatcher, Widow Douglas, etc.) are a bit weaker. It seems almost as if Cinch is too careful with these characters, perhaps afraid to upset Twain purists. Tellingly, Tom Sawyer doesn't appear at all, and most of Huck's appearances are at a younger age than when we first meet him in Twain.

Please do not think you'll love Finn if you loved Twain's books. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are children's characters, and though their adventures did get a little wild, and even a little political, their stories are nothing like Finn. Cinch's book is almost gothic, the cornerstones of its story are violence, alcoholism, and madness. There are no frolicking adventures here, and what humor there is has a very dark underbelly. Finn is every inch a contemporary adult novel, even if its basis is in children's literature from a previous century. However, it's a very good contemporary novel, and if read as such will likely stay with you in a way most contemporary novels don't. Cinch balances the horrific aspects of his story with just enough hope to keep your turning the pages, and at the end you are left feeling as if it was good that you read that, even if reading it was harder than you'd expected it to be. If you think you have the stomach for it, this is a book I would definitely recommend.(less)

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Jul 02, 2008 Izetta Autumn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: washingtonpostbookworld, general-fiction

I am not even sure where to begin in rating Finn by Jon Clinch. First you should probably ignore my star rating, because this isn't a book whose rating, will give any true indication of the love/hate relationship you may have with the book.

You'll love it, because without a doubt, Clinch has a talent as a writer. He feels like a modern-day Faulkner. His language is fluid, poetic, evocative, and then in an instant, sparse and nearly mechanical it its accuracy and sharpness.

You will hate it becaus...more

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Jul 02, 2007 Wendy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story of Huckleberry Finn's father, but no light-hearted jaunt down the Mississippi. Dark, but pure poetry to read. Beautifully written. You hate Finn and you know he's going to die, but you root for him, nonetheless. I think this is the REAL story of Huckleberry Finn. A must read for anyone.

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Apr 10, 2011 Chris Matsagas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had this book recommended to me by a friend when I told them that I was reading "The Adventures of Huck Finn" by Mark Twain for the first time. I'm kind of into these books that give an alternative view of a popular world if done well, and having just finished Mark Twain's story it seemed like as good a time to give it a shot as any, so I picked up the book.

At first it reminded me a lot of The Road, which I had also just read. Gone is the first-person speaking style of Huck Finn, replaced by a...more I had this book recommended to me by a friend when I told them that I was reading "The Adventures of Huck Finn" by Mark Twain for the first time. I'm kind of into these books that give an alternative view of a popular world if done well, and having just finished Mark Twain's story it seemed like as good a time to give it a shot as any, so I picked up the book.

At first it reminded me a lot of The Road, which I had also just read. Gone is the first-person speaking style of Huck Finn, replaced by a third-person narrator with an eloquent vocabulary, which is occasionally interrupted by very minimalistic dialogue. Events and phrases tend to repeat themselves over and over, until they almost become variations on a theme. This might become tiresome to some readers, and about halfway through I started feeling like the story was kind of a low-rent version of something Cormac McCarthy would write. But at some point in-between that thought and my finishing the book, the whole thing clicked for me. He's playing in someone else's universe, but Jon Clinch has crafted a very solid story that he can call his own, about America's history of violence, about the conflict of Nature and Law that dwells within us, the ideas of "good" and "evil" that we inherit from our parents, and about just how hard it is for anyone in this world to find peace within ourselves. An early passage about "The Judge," Pap Finn's father, is the book in a nutshell; if you like that, you'll like the book. If not, well, keep reading anyway. It took a while for me to change my mind.

Although I would probably recommend the book to anyone, I can't guarantee you'll like it if you liked Huck Finn, maybe especially if you liked Huck Finn. The book is studiously faithful to the events of Mark Twain's novel, and in fact seeing how the plot works toward several of those events was part of the fun of reading it for me, but it also puts its own interpretation on several characters that's a little controversial. For one, "Pap" Finn (who remains nameless even in Clinch's novel) is the prodigal son of a wealthy judge, and the brother of a wealthy lawyer. Secondly, Huck Finn is revealed to be a quarter black. Both of these have thematic significance in Clinch's story, and I ultimately think that the author honors the spirit of Mark Twain's characters, but if you're a big fan of his classic and what you see is what you get, you might understandably be upset. Other characters from Huck Finn make appearances here (one of which, I was happy to see, was one of the carpetbaggers, who turned up in a brief cameo; whether it was the duke or the king I can't remember now), though none of them are significantly altered.

Also be prepared for some pretty unflinching depictions of violence. Although I found some (very) black humor in Finn's trying to dig a bullet out of a man's shoulder and killing him by mistake, most of the violent acts in the book, detailed thoroughly and pitilessly, can make the story seem troubling or bleak.(less)

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Jun 28, 2007 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I was in the seventh grade, St. James’s drama department put on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I was cast as Alfred Temple, Tom’s competitor for the attention of Becky Thatcher. Tom and Alfred come to blows over her affections and on opening night, Tom tackled me and pinned me to the stage. The violence of Tom’s rough attack caught me off-guard. Needless to say, it hadn’t gone quite like that during rehearsals.

On the second night, I punched Tom Sawyer in the face, and it was on. Alfred...more When I was in the seventh grade, St. James’s drama department put on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I was cast as Alfred Temple, Tom’s competitor for the attention of Becky Thatcher. Tom and Alfred come to blows over her affections and on opening night, Tom tackled me and pinned me to the stage. The violence of Tom’s rough attack caught me off-guard. Needless to say, it hadn’t gone quite like that during rehearsals.

On the second night, I punched Tom Sawyer in the face, and it was on. Alfred Temple, it should be noted, was a teacher’s pet and I was costumed as a cross between Alfalfa and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Alfred is not supposed to know how to throw an uppercut and Tom was pretty irate. On the third and final night of the run, Tom Sawyer and I stole the show with a full-on Jerry Springer-style battle royal. Technically, Tom won, but only because I let him, and only because I had to.

The show, after all, must go on, and on it goes in Jon Clinch’s debut novel Finn, a compelling retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point-of-view of Pap, Huck’s alcoholic father. At the heart of the novel is the unsolved mystery that Twain left behind for his readers to mull over: How did Pap come to be shot in a room filled with weird paraphernalia? (Clue: Alfred Temple didn’t do it.)

Although Finn’s fate is known from the onset (he dead) and the plot is defined by the parameters established in Twain’s novels, there is a score of delicious twists and turns that a clumsy summary would risk ruining. Suffice to say, the biggest revelation in Clinch’s novel is the writing, which is as muscular and deliberate as the act of poling a skiff upriver.

With prose that is reminiscent of Faulkner’s early Yoknapatawpha novels, Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee novels (particularly Child of God), and of course, Twain, Finn gives us an honest-to-God yarn that’s as pleasing to puzzle over as it is to read. Finn lives in a falling down house by the river and with Clinch’s lush descriptions one can almost smell the gutted cat fish and river rot. There's something magnificently voyeuristic about Finn's crimes happening in plain sight of anyone who happens to be taking the air on an upper deck of a riverboat as it chugs up the Mississippi.

From Twain’s novels we know that Finn is a violent, bigoted drunk and Clinch endeavors to explain how he got that way. There’s no question that Finn is as vile a villain that ever skulked on two legs, but once we meet his father we can’t help but look at him with a glimmering—however faint—of sympathy.

One of the paradoxical aspects of Finn’s personality is that early on he manages to escape the yoke of his father's seething hatred and sets out on a path that is, in its own way, wiser and more compassionate than the road taken by his father. Ultimately, however, Finn repudiates this way of knowing the world and is revealed to be very much his father's son – to the peril of everyone he comes into contact with, and none more so than Huckleberry, the most cherished outsider in American letters.

(Excerpted from a review published in February 2007 at The Elegant Variation:
[http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2...])
(less)

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Jul 20, 2007 Matthew rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Using Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a blueprint, particularly the scene where Jim and Huck discover Pap Finn's body, Jon Clinch elaborates on the life of Huck's alcoholic and abusive father, giving him a whole novel to himself. While some scenes from Huckleberry Finn are touched upon again (as when Finn kidnaps - or frees, depending on your attitude - Huck from the Widow Douglas's house), and while Clinch populates this world with an interesting supporting cast (notably: Fin...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The prose of the omniscient narrator is abundant and colorful, and is counterbalanced by the spare, realistic (I like how the characters interrupt each other) dialogue, or is it that the dialogue offsets the narration? Regardless, it works, even if the characters do say "I know it" quite a bit.

One scene in a book already full of violence reminded me of the scene in "Pulp Fiction" (in the car) that is funny despite it concerning a death. Here, it's a well-done, slapstick kind of scene that brings...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Eric Kibler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: booktopia-2013

Every time I read

(and I've read it many times), the scene where Huck and Jim find Pap Finn's body in the floating house mystifies me. What's the deal with those masks? The scribblings on the wall? The wooden leg? How did the house come to be floating in the middle of the river? I always wanted to know what happened to Pap Finn. So, apparently, did Jon Clinch.

Clinch reproduces part of the aforementioned scene at the beginning of the book. Then he tells you Pap Finn's story. Pap is the son of a venal, vindictive circuit judge who has disowned him because of his alcoholism and his relationship with a black woman. Finn survives in his hovel by the river by putting out lines for catfish and trading his catches for necessaries and whiskey. In the leaner times, Finn gets cheap corn liquor from a blind hermit bootlegger in the woods.

Finn is a screw-up, an abuser of women, a thief, and a murderer. We watch his life dissolve in this dark novel, which takes place in between the beats of Mark Twain's most famous novel. This story fits in seamlessly, like one of the stories in Pulp Fiction to the others. The only difference is the darker tone. Twain's novel, for the most part, is written in a comic style. But it would be off-mark to say "Huckleberry Finn" doesn't have its own darkness (remember the conclusion of the feud plotline? Brrr.) It would also be off-mark to say that "Finn" is an adult novel, whereas "Huckleberry Finn" is for kids. "Huckleberry Finn" is a great adult novel that has a lot of appeal for kids, but is often foisted on kids who don't have the maturity to fully understand it.

Probably the most controversial aspect of this book is the revelation that Huck is half black, a "mulatto", in the parlance of the day. I was skeptical, because Huck's narration in Twain's book seems to leave no room for such an interpretation. I kept saying, "Yeah, but...Yeah, but...". Eventually my "yeah buts" were put to rest, and I was willing to accept Clinch's interpretation as a valid one, if not "the" valid one.

A great achievement.(less)

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Sep 07, 2008 Spuddie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the story of Finn, the infamous Huckleberry’s father, as mean and despicable a fictional character (or a real one, come to that) as ever graced the pages of a book, I think. His character was eluded to occasionally during the telling of Mark Twain’s classic tale, but this is his story—the tale of his upbringing, his adulthood, his relationships, his prejudices, and how Huck came to be as well. If the author is attempting to elicit sympathy for Finn—and I honestly don’t think that was his...more

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Mar 08, 2007 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who like their fiction revisionist and gritty

Outstanding. I tend to read 'literary fiction,' but I don't particularly aim for books with a lot of darkness - but this book is pitch black. No heroes, no light, no redemption. What an incredible book. It has been a really, really long time since I felt truly sad when a book was over, but when I turned over the last page of Finn I was actually bummed out for a minute because it was over. The author stays within the time frame created by Twain, but creates a backstory for minor characters that a...more

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Sep 16, 2007 Melody rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mesmerising imagining of Pap Finn, Huck's drunken racist pig of a sire. Violent, horrific and astonishingly well-written, Clinch's first novel rushes in where no one's ever dared go. What Clinch has accomplished here is nothing short of breath-taking. Finn's a bad man who isn't the least bit likable, which makes this novel even more remarkable in its humanity and even tenderness. The tone is just remote and scholarly enough to keep one a step away from Finn, but I could certainly smell him. High...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Kate_ev rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having not read “Huckleberry Finn” I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to understand this book. As it happens I thought it worked perfectly well as a standalone book, I probably didn’t get some of the references but it certainly didn’t detract from my understanding of the story.
What struck me most about this book is the way the author is able to bring a character to life with very few words , he can use a simple smell and it easily conjures up a picture of a character in your head. I like th...more Having not read “Huckleberry Finn” I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to understand this book. As it happens I thought it worked perfectly well as a standalone book, I probably didn’t get some of the references but it certainly didn’t detract from my understanding of the story.
What struck me most about this book is the way the author is able to bring a character to life with very few words , he can use a simple smell and it easily conjures up a picture of a character in your head. I like the fact that it’s not in chronological order, if it were, it would be a little pointless but since this story is more about the characters than the narrative itself it works much better. The story could be structured this way because Finn is a raging alcoholic so it’s reflecting a drunkard’s way of remembering things i.e. all jumbled up.
The fact that Finn refers to his father merely as The Judge and The Laundress, for example, I think shows how Finn is de-humanising them – perhaps because he wants to distance himself from these people, perhaps by giving them no real name, just a title, he can distance himself from the violence he shows them (The Laundress in particular) or because he simply thinks that in his eyes they are not worthy.
I’m unsure about the character of Finn as he is a cold, uncaring, selfish man but small things lead me to question whether he does have empathy. For example when he begins his friendship with The Laundress – is he merely being sadistic and bathing in his own glory of the destruction he has caused her or is he in some warped way trying to make amends? Also the fact that he tells Huck that Mary is not his mother to free him of the troubles of the past – he doesn’t show his son fatherly love but he wants him to be free and knows that he can never give him what he really needs.
The fact is that Finn hates himself – maybe it’s because he was the son that was ignored in favour of his sickly brother, maybe it’s because he loves a woman that he feels he shouldn’t due to her colour. I believe he does love Mary, in his own weird way – when she leaves him he doesn’t go in search of anyone else and whether it’s the basic security he misses when she’s not around, he doesn’t miss a woman, he misses her.
I did find the story quite suffocating, the monotony of Finn’s daily routine – fishing, trading, drinking himself into oblivion and the violence that follows. I think he gets himself into such a state because he wants someone to look after him and he has given up on trying to make his father proud so now the only attention he can get is by screwing up which results in them being face to face in the courtroom.
A very good read, an insight into slavery, shame and brutality all seen through the eyes of one family.
(less)

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Apr 21, 2008 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Huck's father is a menacing drunk who crops up throughout the novel, often making trouble for Huck. John Clinch's Finn takes the father as the main character and describes just how Finn became so cruel - with many of the scenes intersecting with those of the original novel. What I really liked was that Clinch did not try to imitate Twain's use of dialect, rather, he creates his own version that is original yet convincing.

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Nov 28, 2007 Lewis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Mark Twain and was a little skeptical about fiction in 2007 reimagining the life of Pap Finn. I was wrong. On top of it all, it imagines Huck Finn a mulatto. The racism and shame of miscegenation is a powerful force throughout this novel leading Pap to kill his love. I read it in a night and so can you.....
Oh and by the way, this was everything that March was not. See earlier review of that book.

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Jun 15, 2012 Alex Hoshor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a debut novel and yet it’s as brave and confident and knowing as anything I’ve read (which admittedly isn’t a ton, so calm down). It’s been a few years since I read Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, and initially I had a notion to read them again in preface, but then thought better of it as I feared I may just set Clinch’s book up to fall short. Now I’m not so sure it would have mattered. Finn is just damn damn good. That’s two damn’s, I know it. It's a poetic narrative cut with usually brus...more

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Oct 30, 2007 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Mary Kim Schreck

I learned that evil is what we create amongst ourselves. The pain we inflict on others richochets back to us after a time. What we hate in ourselves is what we hate in others. The darkness of human existence knows few bounds.
Clinch creates a world of evil and humanity in this minor, but now very important, character in Huckleberry Finn.

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Jul 03, 2007 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very innovative and captivating approach to the Huck Finn prequel. The author's imagination is well outside the box in the telling of Pap Finn's life and relationships. A dark novel that meshes perfectly with the much lighter Huckleberry Finn. Congratulations on a great first novel!

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Dec 18, 2007 [riley] rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Weeks later and I still can't get the images out of my head. Finn was a mesmerizing read that I recommend to any Mark Twain fan.

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Nov 06, 2007 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The best book I read last year. This guy can WRITE!

R

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Mar 15, 2011 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Lovers of Southern Gothic; those who admire (but don't worship) the work of Mark Twain

Recommended to Amanda by: Todd Ewing

Shelves: book-club-made-me-do-it

Well, I'm not really sure what to say about Finn. I can't say that I loved it, nor can I say that I hated it. I wish that I had read Huckleberry Finn before reading the book so that I could make more comparisons between the two, and I would have known more about the storyline that inspired Clinch. I admire that Clinch didn't try to imitate Mark Twain's writing style; to have done so would have robbed his portrayal of Finn (who I understand, even in Twain's work, was hinted at being a dark, moral...more

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Jun 14, 2008 sally rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was torn whether to give this a 3 or 4 star... I read huckleberry finn and the adventures of tom sawyer probably six or seven times each when i was little so I'm torn between being excited that Clinch added another book to the plot, and offended that he would presume to write it :)

I loved that Clinch dove right into the issue of race and slavery, and I thought Huck's lineage was totally believable and in keeping with Twain's spirit. I almost felt that Twain could have written this plot if he h...more

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Feb 28, 2008 Zach rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-books, b-club-fiction

The premise sounds like some sort of "fan fiction", however the book has received strong reviews--I expected it to be similar to Rozencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead--a retelling of a classic story from another perspective. It is not. Huckelberry Finn is almost a minor character, and other than a few characters from the original (Judge Thatcher, the widow) crossing paths with Pap Finn, there is very little direct connection with the two stories. Pap Finn does come nosey around for "his" shar...more

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Feb 16, 2008 Terry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 16, 2008 jacky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who have read Huck Finn

Shelves: 2008, lib-lew, need-to-reread, adult-fiction

I really enjoyed this novel that gives Pap Finn's back story. It followed the details of the original text very well and explains all the items founds at and circumstances surrounding Pap's death. I was only let down once, and that was that there was barely anything about Huck's "murder" and, in this version, Pap does not go on the ferry which tries to raise Huck's body. However, all the other details were right on and several other Twain characters make appearances. The story jumps in time a lo...more

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Jul 27, 2007 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an enjoyable read. It inspired me to go back and read Twain's Huck again - which was also fun. One of the pros of this book is the prose, which, although it goes too far once or twice, is excellent. One of the cons of this book might be that it subverts a theme in its source. In the original, Twain offers up an escape clause in the intro to avoid the fervor his liberal stance would otherwise stir up. Never-the-less one of the reasons it endures as a classic is because it has a very stron...more

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Jun 28, 2007 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Huckleberry Finn

One of the most interesting discussions I have with my students about Huck is about his moral formation. In what ways has his abusive and alcoholic father "formed" his conscience? Perhaps Twain never expected us to look psychologically into his novel, but it's impossible not to reflect on Huck's formation, when we read about the racist, hog-like, monstrous Pap. So that's why I think this novel was an incredible idea!
I was skeptical, but I really liked this "prequel" to Huck Finn. I only wish I'd...more

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Sep 19, 2007 Cathy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: any fan of American literature

It has been a spell since my last Huckleberry Finn read, but it all came back as I read through "Finn". I'm a big fan of books that expound on the curious characters that authors leave in the shadows but I'm leery of books that appear to be trying to capitalize on some greater novel that came before. This story was told so well you'd think Mark Twain himself was reading it to you, but at the same time, it doesn't attempt to compete with the original story. It was clever. It was insightful and on...more

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Jun 01, 2007 Donyatta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an unrelentingly dark tale of a violent man and his impact on the world around him. It portrays Huck's father as a racist who lusts after black women and "steals" Huck's mother, keeping her a virtual prisoner, although in truth she has nowhere else to go. All of this is overseen by his family, much to the disgust of his even more racist father, "the Judge" and the sorrow of his brother. Although Finn is the more outwardly repulsive the novel slowly revels that the Judge is the more evil...more

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May 26, 2008 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Take Clemens' god awful father of Huck and explore the depths of his depravity. I mean, really go deep and then some. Be miserly when you add little kindnesses and fragments of human yearnings. Then you've got Finn.

Difficult to read because the evil of the title persona, someone who Clinch imagines into a full blown character is so immense.

The novel relies is recursive in its own structure as well as in how it meshes with Clemens' narrative. I was always impressed by how skillfully this novel...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A solid book. The main character is not likable, nor is he understandable, even to himself. Unlike so many modern novels, this one takes a minor character from the masterwork, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and weaves a world that would create Pap Finn and traces what he would have done outside of the novel that Twain shares with us. This is not a novel for children. It is a novel about adults and for adults. The elder Finn is dark and damaged, damaged by his harsh father and his awful worl...more

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About Jon Clinch

Born and raised in the remote heart of upstate New York, Jon Clinch has been an English teacher, a metalworker, a folksinger, an illustrator, a typeface designer, a housepainter, a copywriter, and an advertising executive.

His latest novel, The Thief of Auschwitz, arrived on January 15, 2013 on his own imprint, unmediated ink. Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg, calls the book "th...more

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“Under a low sun, pursued by fish and mounted by crows and veiled in a loud swarm of bluebottle flies, the body comes down the river like a deadfall stripped clean.” — 3 people liked it

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avg rating	preview: Finn Goodreads rating: 3.71 (1529 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2906118-finn?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320509898l/2906118.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2906118-finn?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Finn by Jon Clinch[/url]

Finn

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