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Three by Finney: The Woodrow Wilson Dime / The Night People / Marion's Wall
This handsome new book combines three Finney favorites (The Woodrow Wilson Dime, Marion's Wall, The Night People) in an omnibus edition that brilliantly displays his bold and unmistakable imagination. Certain to delight anyone with a penchant for penetrating imaginary realms of fantasy and adventure.
432 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 1987
63 people are currently reading
301 people want to read
About the author
Jack Finney
118 books476 followersMr. 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 1880s, 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 1920s.
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.
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 1920s.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
February 7, 2021
Three shorter novels by the prolific Jack Finney. I read the first (published 1968) decades ago; don't think I encountered the others. Marion's Wall is a nice ghost story; The Night People (1977) felt very California hippy and had more ramble than plot.
May 14, 2022
By this time in my life I have to confess that Finney is something of an acquired taste.
And I still think his best work was the novel "Time and Again."
This volume combines three of his novels -- one each from the '50s, '60s, and '70s -- that combine both the best and the most cringe-worthy aspects of his writing.
The best is quite good: some interesting takes on time travel, allowing us to "visit" an altered San Francisco where things are mostly the same but... and a truly in-depth exploration of silent movies and their most notable stars, including a couple that are still more than a little lively and not content to being only "shades."
But the downside is that his views of women are woefully one-dimensional and sexist: all too often they are referred to as "girls," his comments about their appearance inevitably involve their physical proportions, and he exhibits a rather consistent view of females and sexuality that seems to be more like those entertained by some teens and younger persons in their 20s than the somewhat older males he writes about. These things intrude and occur frequently enough that I got more than a little tired with encountering them.
Accordingly, this book is really something of a mixed bag.
If you are interested in Finney, then I would suggest his novel "Time and Again" as well as a more palatable collection of his short stories that I reviewed recently "About Time."
And I still think his best work was the novel "Time and Again."
This volume combines three of his novels -- one each from the '50s, '60s, and '70s -- that combine both the best and the most cringe-worthy aspects of his writing.
The best is quite good: some interesting takes on time travel, allowing us to "visit" an altered San Francisco where things are mostly the same but... and a truly in-depth exploration of silent movies and their most notable stars, including a couple that are still more than a little lively and not content to being only "shades."
But the downside is that his views of women are woefully one-dimensional and sexist: all too often they are referred to as "girls," his comments about their appearance inevitably involve their physical proportions, and he exhibits a rather consistent view of females and sexuality that seems to be more like those entertained by some teens and younger persons in their 20s than the somewhat older males he writes about. These things intrude and occur frequently enough that I got more than a little tired with encountering them.
Accordingly, this book is really something of a mixed bag.
If you are interested in Finney, then I would suggest his novel "Time and Again" as well as a more palatable collection of his short stories that I reviewed recently "About Time."
June 13, 2019
I read this years ago, but I still remember "The Woodrow Wilson Dime." I remember that I didn't enjoy the other two stories as much. I loaned this book and Time and Again to people. I even bought a second copy of Time and Again when my first copy disappeared. Then the second copy disappeared.
November 23, 2017
"Here's a treasure chest of vintage Finney for all the fans of Time and Again, About Time and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now three 'lost' timeless Finney novels are gathered in one edition that brilliantly displays the author's bold and unmistakable imagination -- where time travelers invade parallel worlds, where ghosts wreak havoc, where humor, mystery and adventure combine with a deft understanding of human nature to produce irresistible fiction of high style.
"Enter the intoxicating atmosphere of Finney's worlds."
~~back cover
I didn't realize Jack Finney wrote Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime
A charming variation of one of Finney's recurrent themes: time travel. A sweet romance, and moral fortitude are woven into the details of time travel to the late 19th century. Fascinating story!
Mation's Wall
Not exactly time travel, more of a ghost story. Surprise ending, which I won't spoil for you.
The Night People
This story was totally unexpected. And eerie. I couldn't read it all at one go -- it would get to a scary part & I'd have to put it down for a day or two before I got the courage to go on. I kept thinking I should just not finish it, but there's a teaser in the beginning that I wanted explained, so I soldiered on. A strange ending, appropriate for a strange plot I guess. But a story that will haunt my mind for a long time I think.
"Enter the intoxicating atmosphere of Finney's worlds."
~~back cover
I didn't realize Jack Finney wrote Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime
A charming variation of one of Finney's recurrent themes: time travel. A sweet romance, and moral fortitude are woven into the details of time travel to the late 19th century. Fascinating story!
Mation's Wall
Not exactly time travel, more of a ghost story. Surprise ending, which I won't spoil for you.
The Night People
This story was totally unexpected. And eerie. I couldn't read it all at one go -- it would get to a scary part & I'd have to put it down for a day or two before I got the courage to go on. I kept thinking I should just not finish it, but there's a teaser in the beginning that I wanted explained, so I soldiered on. A strange ending, appropriate for a strange plot I guess. But a story that will haunt my mind for a long time I think.
February 16, 2011
These three stories/novellas/novels were very disappointing compared to Finney's Time and Again. Of the three, I liked "Marion's Wall" the best. The other two were just weird and seemed dated. Finney's works (including Time and Again, although it's done much better) follow this pattern: a man in his late 20s/ early 30s has a stable yet unsatisfying job and a pretty yet unsatisfying wife/girlfriend. Man seeks escape from dull life. Also, Finney's irrelevant description of what each character is wearing in every new scene in "Night People" was incredibly annoying.
May 11, 2007
I was pretty young when I found this on the shelf at home, and I found Jack Finney so clever, so startlingly funny and exciting that I've always sort of felt that The Night People, and The Woodrow Wilson Dime (two of the three novellas in this collection) were written just for me.
February 11, 2016
This is basically like the softer side of "The Twilight Zone," full of nostalgic tales about slipping backwards into a simpler, more innocent time.
July 12, 2017
Very different from what I expected. Humor instead of horror, with just a touch of the supernatural. Warm, intelligent and wonderfully crafted stories.
March 6, 2025
The collection starts with “The Woodrow Wilson Dime.” Of the three, this is the one that’s most on-brand for Finney. It’s not about time travel per se. Instead, it’s about travel between alternate universes — different versions of the present (as of the time Finney wrote it).
In the base universe, ours, protagonist Ben is a loser. He’s mediocre at best in his job as an advertising copywriter. As to his marriage to wife Hetty, it isn’t necessarily bad. But as we meet Ben, it’s gradually growing stale.
On day, he stops at his regular newsstand to buy a paper. And suddenly, the world is different. New York City’s Chrysler Building, where he works, is no longer there. It wasn’t demolished. It never existed. The key to his apartment doesn’t work. Turns out he never lived there, He finds his way to his alternate-universe home and goes in. But Hetty isn’t there. Instead, he is greeted lovingly by his beautiful wife Tessie. And professionally, he’s very successful.
It turns out that a Woodrow Wilson dime he used to buy the newspaper was his ticket, so to speak, to this alternative universe. Paying with a Roosevelt dime will get him back to the original one.
Will he go back? Should he? That’s the meat of the story.
Toward the end, it takes on something of a slapstick quality. But no matter… it’s a very entertaining and satisfying story.
The second story, “Marion’s Wall,” is a delightful change of pace. It starts with Nick and Jan, a young 1985 San Fransico married couple peeling layers of old wall paper from the living room of an old house they occupy. Suddenly, they reach a layer in which a big message is written with red lipstick. It says “Marion Marsh lived here, June 14, 1926. Read it and weep!”
Nick checked with his father who once lived bear that house. He knew right away what the message was. Marion and he were lovers. She was trying to break into movies (that was the silent film era). Nick Sr. refused to accompany her to move to Hollywood, so she planned to leave him and go on her own. He was there when Marion wrote the message.
Unfortunately, Marion died in an accident the night before she was to leave. So the career she envisioned never happened. A lost opportunity… or not. Marion’s ghost comes back, and decides to occupy Jan’s body. Will she finally realize her dream? This is an intriguing adventure with an ending that’s simultaneously surprising, sweet, and grotesque (odd combination, isn’t it).
The third story, “Night People,” didn’t appeal to many on Goodreads or elsewhere, So I approached it with trepidation.I was prepared to abandon it if I hated it. Actually, though I was quickly hooked and wound up enjoying it quite a bit. It had some flaws… parts, mainly in the second half of the work, seemed way too drawn out. But on the whole, the story really spoke to me.
I think, perhaps, because I knew right away how Lew felt when he started going out for his solitary nocturnal adventures. I never did anything quite like what he did. But I have had the exhilarating feeling of being out and about deep into the night, when all all of the regular life one knows is nowhere to be found and you’re in a completely different, almost alien, world.
But Lou’s doings don’t long stay solitary. He’s eventually joined by his girlfriend Jo, and by their friends, Harry and Shirley. The adventures the get progressively weirder. It started to remind me a bit of the 1985 cult film “After Hours,” where things in the nighttime world spun progressively out of control for the protagonist. But in this story, Lew, Jo, Harry and Shirley always retained their agency over events. The agency versus no control thing is hard to explain, but fascinating.
I wonder if widespread disdain for “Night People” says more about it’s having probably violated the expectations with which many (including me) approach Finney, No time travel, no ghosts,no alternate universe, nothing like that. If you really want Finney-style works, “Night People” is probably best skipped. But those open to something completely off brand for Finney, this one is well worth reading.
In the base universe, ours, protagonist Ben is a loser. He’s mediocre at best in his job as an advertising copywriter. As to his marriage to wife Hetty, it isn’t necessarily bad. But as we meet Ben, it’s gradually growing stale.
On day, he stops at his regular newsstand to buy a paper. And suddenly, the world is different. New York City’s Chrysler Building, where he works, is no longer there. It wasn’t demolished. It never existed. The key to his apartment doesn’t work. Turns out he never lived there, He finds his way to his alternate-universe home and goes in. But Hetty isn’t there. Instead, he is greeted lovingly by his beautiful wife Tessie. And professionally, he’s very successful.
It turns out that a Woodrow Wilson dime he used to buy the newspaper was his ticket, so to speak, to this alternative universe. Paying with a Roosevelt dime will get him back to the original one.
Will he go back? Should he? That’s the meat of the story.
Toward the end, it takes on something of a slapstick quality. But no matter… it’s a very entertaining and satisfying story.
The second story, “Marion’s Wall,” is a delightful change of pace. It starts with Nick and Jan, a young 1985 San Fransico married couple peeling layers of old wall paper from the living room of an old house they occupy. Suddenly, they reach a layer in which a big message is written with red lipstick. It says “Marion Marsh lived here, June 14, 1926. Read it and weep!”
Nick checked with his father who once lived bear that house. He knew right away what the message was. Marion and he were lovers. She was trying to break into movies (that was the silent film era). Nick Sr. refused to accompany her to move to Hollywood, so she planned to leave him and go on her own. He was there when Marion wrote the message.
Unfortunately, Marion died in an accident the night before she was to leave. So the career she envisioned never happened. A lost opportunity… or not. Marion’s ghost comes back, and decides to occupy Jan’s body. Will she finally realize her dream? This is an intriguing adventure with an ending that’s simultaneously surprising, sweet, and grotesque (odd combination, isn’t it).
The third story, “Night People,” didn’t appeal to many on Goodreads or elsewhere, So I approached it with trepidation.I was prepared to abandon it if I hated it. Actually, though I was quickly hooked and wound up enjoying it quite a bit. It had some flaws… parts, mainly in the second half of the work, seemed way too drawn out. But on the whole, the story really spoke to me.
I think, perhaps, because I knew right away how Lew felt when he started going out for his solitary nocturnal adventures. I never did anything quite like what he did. But I have had the exhilarating feeling of being out and about deep into the night, when all all of the regular life one knows is nowhere to be found and you’re in a completely different, almost alien, world.
But Lou’s doings don’t long stay solitary. He’s eventually joined by his girlfriend Jo, and by their friends, Harry and Shirley. The adventures the get progressively weirder. It started to remind me a bit of the 1985 cult film “After Hours,” where things in the nighttime world spun progressively out of control for the protagonist. But in this story, Lew, Jo, Harry and Shirley always retained their agency over events. The agency versus no control thing is hard to explain, but fascinating.
I wonder if widespread disdain for “Night People” says more about it’s having probably violated the expectations with which many (including me) approach Finney, No time travel, no ghosts,no alternate universe, nothing like that. If you really want Finney-style works, “Night People” is probably best skipped. But those open to something completely off brand for Finney, this one is well worth reading.
November 26, 2021
“The Woodrow Wilson Dime”-I was expecting more of a Twilight Zone type of plot, with quirky manifestations of time and interuniversal travel. Instead, this is more of a Walter Mitty-ish tale, the protagonist of which is not very sympathetic, and in fact gives off a dark, stalker kind of vibe. There are some interesting and funny aspects to the story, and I feel that it was worth reading, although had I read reviews of it beforehand, and realized that it wouldn’t be what I was expecting, I most likely would not have read it. Also, it is my understanding that this is a story that was written in the early sixties, and then updated in the eighties. This gives it a very anachronistic feel, with many jarring dissimilarities in the descriptions of day to day life in the different universes (both between universes and within the same universe), feeling very 60’s at one moment, and very 80’s the next; all the while, however, the overall story retains a very early 60’s-ish feel in it’s attitudes towards gender roles, careers, etc. 2.75/5 stars.
“Marian’s Wall”-The second story is better. Its premise is just as intriguing, but it sticks to the expectations it raises better, at least in my opinion. A mysterious message from the past on the wall of an old San Francisco apartment building, a compelling backstory, and decent follow through help drive the narrative. The are some light hearted and funny moments that keep the story accessible, but do not detract from the sci-fi/ghost mystery plot that is at the core; in other words, much more of what you expect from Jack Finney. A couple of things detracted somewhat, however. First, and I caution that this could serve as somewhat of a spoiler, so please skip it if it bothers you, there is really no deep exploration of what is essentially a possession. I mean, who wouldn’t go pretty far trying to explain total loss of control over one’s thoughts and physical actions, resulting in completely atypical behavior, and lasting for days at a time? Either the possessed or a love one would likely suggest psychiatric evaluation at the very least. Relatively bland acceptance followed by “moving on” strikes me as somewhat unrealistic, even for a short format fantasy. That being said, “Marion’s Wall” is an engaging, entertaining read that satisfies the expectations raised by its premise. Would recommend for Finney fans, 3/5.
“The Night People”-A real slog. I had to speed read the second half just to get to the end. Thoroughly unlikable and unengaging characters, and a pointless plot. Way to long. I grew up in the Bay Area, and this made the Bay Area boring. 0.5/5.
Overall, 2/5, mostly on the strength of the “Marion’s Wall”.
“Marian’s Wall”-The second story is better. Its premise is just as intriguing, but it sticks to the expectations it raises better, at least in my opinion. A mysterious message from the past on the wall of an old San Francisco apartment building, a compelling backstory, and decent follow through help drive the narrative. The are some light hearted and funny moments that keep the story accessible, but do not detract from the sci-fi/ghost mystery plot that is at the core; in other words, much more of what you expect from Jack Finney. A couple of things detracted somewhat, however. First, and I caution that this could serve as somewhat of a spoiler, so please skip it if it bothers you, there is really no deep exploration of what is essentially a possession. I mean, who wouldn’t go pretty far trying to explain total loss of control over one’s thoughts and physical actions, resulting in completely atypical behavior, and lasting for days at a time? Either the possessed or a love one would likely suggest psychiatric evaluation at the very least. Relatively bland acceptance followed by “moving on” strikes me as somewhat unrealistic, even for a short format fantasy. That being said, “Marion’s Wall” is an engaging, entertaining read that satisfies the expectations raised by its premise. Would recommend for Finney fans, 3/5.
“The Night People”-A real slog. I had to speed read the second half just to get to the end. Thoroughly unlikable and unengaging characters, and a pointless plot. Way to long. I grew up in the Bay Area, and this made the Bay Area boring. 0.5/5.
Overall, 2/5, mostly on the strength of the “Marion’s Wall”.
April 2, 2019
Omnibus edition of three lesser-known novels from Jack Finney (1911-1995), science fiction author best known for the beloved 1970 time-travel tale Time and Again and The Body Snatchers (1955). All three of these books have typical white-collar guys whose staid lives get upended by magical and/or dangerous situations. While The Woodrow Wilson Dime had an excellent concept (a coin serves as a portal to an alternate reality), the story was undone by a dated-sexist Mad Men-era sensibility, while The Night People squanders its potential (four complacent friends decide to spice up their nights with increasingly risky pranks and stunts) with boring characters and a final third that was a total slog to get through. Like the other reviewers here, I thought Marion's Wall (1975) fared the best, an enjoyable romp for vintage movie fans. The Marion of the title is the ghost of a silent-screen actress, a flirty and impetuous Clara Bow-type who finally gets the fame she longed for in her prime by inhabiting the body of a 1970s housewife.
For this 1987 edition, Finney felt that it was appropriate to update the contents of Woodrow Wilson and Marion's Wall with awkward 1980s pop culture references (including one cringe-inducing callout to actress Glenn Close, who starred in Maxie—the 1984 movie version of Marion's Wall). Readers are better off skipping this one and seeking out an original '70s printing of Marion's Wall. The other two novels are only of interest for Finney completists.
October 10, 2018
This was quite the mixed bag. Of the three novellas, Marion’s Wall was far and away the best. A couple, Nick and Jan, move into an apartment in San Francisco, which was lived in, in the 1920s, by Marion Marsh, a vivacious young actress who was about to become a star. However Marion died in a car accident and never had the career that she expected to have. When they refurbish the apartment they come upon a huge inscription in lipstick, “Marion Marsh lived here, June 14, 1926. Read it and weep!” The unveiling of the inscription brings Marion back to life, or at least her spirit now lives through Jan. How Nick deals with his wife and Marion in the same body is quite a challenge, especially since Marion wants to resume her film career. Her coming to terms with modern day filmmaking is sad, and the flaming ending, at Vilma Banky’s Graustark mansion, is spectacular.
The other two novellas are dated, both in terms of subject matter and humor. In The Woodrow Wilson Dime a man is in love with and married to two different women in slightly different parallel worlds. His sophomoric wooing of his ex-wife in one of the worlds takes up most of the story. In The Night People two bored couples do juvenile things—lying on the freeway at night, teasing a cop, breaking into a library—so that they’ll be thought memorable.
The other two novellas are dated, both in terms of subject matter and humor. In The Woodrow Wilson Dime a man is in love with and married to two different women in slightly different parallel worlds. His sophomoric wooing of his ex-wife in one of the worlds takes up most of the story. In The Night People two bored couples do juvenile things—lying on the freeway at night, teasing a cop, breaking into a library—so that they’ll be thought memorable.
February 6, 2018
I hate to give only two stars to a book by Jack Finney, whose Time and Again is one of my very favorite time-travel novels, but I've read only The Woodrow Wilson Dime out of this one and until I read the others I can't give it more stars. This story would have worked better if the author hadn't tinkered with it to update some of it, but not all of it, and so it starts out being a novel well-rooted in the 1960s when it was first written, but then something out of the 1980s drops in. When one of the story's major premises is travel between parallel universes, this problem jars the reader out of the odd logic of the two worlds by introducing something that clearly doesn't fit either one. Besides that, the story is badly dated by the sexist attitude of the protagonist. It's hard to enter the point of view of a man who consistently objectifies women--painful, really. The only saving grace in this story is the unbelievable yet incredibly hilarious episode of a theft involving the use of a St. Bernard dog costume, handcuffs, and a swimming pool.
November 14, 2019
1) The Woodrow Wilson Dime - A madcap, frenzied, ridiculous (involving a dog costume!), unfunny, and uninteresting jaunt between alternate realities. No sympathetic characters to root for here. One star.
2) Marion's Wall - A ghost story involving possession, which should have been creepy-scary, but it's not; it is the better story among this sorry lot of three. Author obviously knows his old movies, actors, collectibles, and movie trivia. And San Francisco. Unlike the first story, the frenzy is restrained, with better, albeit one-dimensional characters. Three stars.
3) The Night People - This too-long short story (a novella, actually) about a pair of bored, swinging San Francisco suburbanite couples is just as horrible as The Woodrow Wilson Dime. No character the reader can root for here, not a one. One star.
I remember being so moved by Time and Again, many years ago. It's one of my favorite time travel stories. What happened?
2) Marion's Wall - A ghost story involving possession, which should have been creepy-scary, but it's not; it is the better story among this sorry lot of three. Author obviously knows his old movies, actors, collectibles, and movie trivia. And San Francisco. Unlike the first story, the frenzy is restrained, with better, albeit one-dimensional characters. Three stars.
3) The Night People - This too-long short story (a novella, actually) about a pair of bored, swinging San Francisco suburbanite couples is just as horrible as The Woodrow Wilson Dime. No character the reader can root for here, not a one. One star.
I remember being so moved by Time and Again, many years ago. It's one of my favorite time travel stories. What happened?
November 4, 2025
This was a slog. Of the three novels included, only one - "Marion's Wall" - was worth the read. The others have not held up at all. The first one - "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" - plays terrifying stalking of an ex-spouse for humor; the third one - "The Night People" - is a weird, juvenile 1970s "my life is so boring" story that ends in a stupid prank.
And the writing was so bad! The dialogue was ridiculous. And the over-description and unnecessary details could be like reading about paint drying. Jack, you can PICK AND CHOOSE what you actually explain in tedious detail to your readers. We'll fill in the blanks, I promise.
Skip this one.
And the writing was so bad! The dialogue was ridiculous. And the over-description and unnecessary details could be like reading about paint drying. Jack, you can PICK AND CHOOSE what you actually explain in tedious detail to your readers. We'll fill in the blanks, I promise.
Skip this one.
August 31, 2025
After I read bodysnatchers, I immediately wanted more Finney. This anthology is pretty perfect to give you thay fill if you have it.
I did start to lose steam about halfway between the second story but I think if you dont read them one after the other like I did, you might find it more enjoyable.
Not saying theyre not enjoyable in any fashion, but they all start to feel the same after awhile, but very fun nonetheless!
I did start to lose steam about halfway between the second story but I think if you dont read them one after the other like I did, you might find it more enjoyable.
Not saying theyre not enjoyable in any fashion, but they all start to feel the same after awhile, but very fun nonetheless!
June 9, 2025
Three stories in one by one of my favorite authors. I love Time and Again and it's sequel, and though these are good, they don't pack the same wallop for me. Have carried this book with me for over 40 years, but we need room on the shelves now for new favorites. Keeping the novels, releasing these stories.
March 30, 2022
I shouldn’t count this as a “read” book. I only read the first novel (there are three in one book)and it didn’t even come close to Finneys writing in Time and Again. It was so confusing that I can’t get started on the other two, so back on the shelf it goes until I’m ready to start again.
November 10, 2024
I liked one of these short novels very much - Marion's Walls. Merges the silent films era of the 1920's with modern Hollywood. A rising young silent film actress dies in an accident, but many years later, her lover's son occupies their old apartment and finds evidence of their time together.
May 3, 2020
Picked this up because of "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" but that may have been my least fav or the 3. All really good stories, though.
May 5, 2021
Read in 1975ish. I remember that I very much enjoyed the stories. - I remember the names after all these years. And I remember The Woodrow Wilson Dime.
September 18, 2023
Interesting stories, fun characters - pacing was a little off. Took me longer to get through than I would've liked.
May 30, 2011
This omnibus collection of 3 short novels is a case where a current re-reading failed to live up to the expectations set by the first time I encountered the book.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime is an expansion/re-working of the short story "The Coin Collector" (featured in I Love Galesburg in the Springtime ). I think it's much weaker than the original; Finney adds a Walter Mitty-ish dimension by describing some of his protagonist's daydreams as if they were factual; this seems like an iffy gambit in a story in which fantastic things "really" happen, and didn't exactly help maintain my suspension of disbelief. Finney seems to be aiming for the mood of a vintage madcap flick, but I think some comedy tactics work much better with a visual medium. If, for instance, a film requires that a character not realize that what seems to be a dog is a human in a dog costume, the movie invites both the audience and the cast in on the joke. We can see that the person doesn't really look like a dog, so the fourth wall is broken; we know the actor being duped isn't really dumb enough to mistake a human for a dog (even if the character is). The humor arises in part from the literally incredible nature of the situation. In a novel this sort of thing is much harder to pull off, and The Woodrow Wilson Dime strained my incredulity muscles. It was also originally published in 1968, but this 1987 edition appears to have been revised very slightly, with mentions of things like Ronald Reagan's political career that felt jarring and anachronistic to me.
Marion's Wall is also in part an homage to classic film: in it a couple living in San Francisco are haunted by the ghost of an unsung silent film actress who died at the outset of her career. (It has a hefty dose of the nostalgia/distate for modernity that characterizes so much of Finney's fiction.) Al though the ending struck me as weak and predictable, I thought it was pretty darn creepy. It wasn't clear to me if it was supposed to read quite as creepily as it did for me, and I found that disturbing. (I'm trying to skirt spoilers here, but there are some scenes of dubious consensuality and eerie passivity.)
The Night People made the strongest impression on me both times around. It's devoid of any fantastic elements, but uses as a key thematic element the eerie sense of otherworldliness one can experience in a deserted place that's usually crowded, like, say, a commuter thoroughfare in the dead of night. (It shares this, although not plot details or characters, with the short story "The Intrepid Aeronaut," which also appeared in I Love Galesburg in the Springtime.)
The male protagonists of all three novels struggle in various ways with the strictures of monogamy, but The Night People "monogamy" is most explicitly presented as an instance of "monotony," the real foe of the two couples who start wandering around in the dead of night indulging in increasingly anti-social and risky behavior. I thought the first few chapters were terrific; Finney has a knack for very specific physical detail which both captures the strange mood of the nightscape and makes it believable. I didn't think the rest of the novel quite lived up to the opening, and again I found it hard to suspend disbelief a few times. But I liked it pretty well overall.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime is an expansion/re-working of the short story "The Coin Collector" (featured in I Love Galesburg in the Springtime ). I think it's much weaker than the original; Finney adds a Walter Mitty-ish dimension by describing some of his protagonist's daydreams as if they were factual; this seems like an iffy gambit in a story in which fantastic things "really" happen, and didn't exactly help maintain my suspension of disbelief. Finney seems to be aiming for the mood of a vintage madcap flick, but I think some comedy tactics work much better with a visual medium. If, for instance, a film requires that a character not realize that what seems to be a dog is a human in a dog costume, the movie invites both the audience and the cast in on the joke. We can see that the person doesn't really look like a dog, so the fourth wall is broken; we know the actor being duped isn't really dumb enough to mistake a human for a dog (even if the character is). The humor arises in part from the literally incredible nature of the situation. In a novel this sort of thing is much harder to pull off, and The Woodrow Wilson Dime strained my incredulity muscles. It was also originally published in 1968, but this 1987 edition appears to have been revised very slightly, with mentions of things like Ronald Reagan's political career that felt jarring and anachronistic to me.
Marion's Wall is also in part an homage to classic film: in it a couple living in San Francisco are haunted by the ghost of an unsung silent film actress who died at the outset of her career. (It has a hefty dose of the nostalgia/distate for modernity that characterizes so much of Finney's fiction.) Al though the ending struck me as weak and predictable, I thought it was pretty darn creepy. It wasn't clear to me if it was supposed to read quite as creepily as it did for me, and I found that disturbing. (I'm trying to skirt spoilers here, but there are some scenes of dubious consensuality and eerie passivity.)
The Night People made the strongest impression on me both times around. It's devoid of any fantastic elements, but uses as a key thematic element the eerie sense of otherworldliness one can experience in a deserted place that's usually crowded, like, say, a commuter thoroughfare in the dead of night. (It shares this, although not plot details or characters, with the short story "The Intrepid Aeronaut," which also appeared in I Love Galesburg in the Springtime.)
The male protagonists of all three novels struggle in various ways with the strictures of monogamy, but The Night People "monogamy" is most explicitly presented as an instance of "monotony," the real foe of the two couples who start wandering around in the dead of night indulging in increasingly anti-social and risky behavior. I thought the first few chapters were terrific; Finney has a knack for very specific physical detail which both captures the strange mood of the nightscape and makes it believable. I didn't think the rest of the novel quite lived up to the opening, and again I found it hard to suspend disbelief a few times. But I liked it pretty well overall.
August 7, 2009
This is actually three novels by Jack Finney, the master of time travel. I was thinking it was three short stories/novellas not novels.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime was fun but I got a bit confused by the multiple parallel universes and wasn't sure about the significance of the WW dime. Maybe not in office for long?
My favourite novel was Marion's Wall. Really interesting characterisation and enjoyable descriptions of San Fransisco. It has been made into a movie. I just can't see Glenn Close as Marion! But she is in a movie version from the 80s called Maxie.
I won't read The Night People as that is actually The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Horror not ghosts or time travel.
The Woodrow Wilson Dime was fun but I got a bit confused by the multiple parallel universes and wasn't sure about the significance of the WW dime. Maybe not in office for long?
My favourite novel was Marion's Wall. Really interesting characterisation and enjoyable descriptions of San Fransisco. It has been made into a movie. I just can't see Glenn Close as Marion! But she is in a movie version from the 80s called Maxie.
I won't read The Night People as that is actually The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Horror not ghosts or time travel.
May 5, 2016
So far I've learned you can't go wrong with anything by Jack Finney. Three by Finney is reading three different stories, long enough to have satisfying endings and will hold your interest. Best know for the Bodysnatchers, of which I haven't read yet, but plan to in the future; his stories pull you in and are enjoyable.
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September 27, 2008Of the three, Ive read The Woodrow Wilson Dime and part of The Night People. This reminds me that I really should get to finishing those...
April 3, 2009
I've read Finney before and enjoyed it, and appreciate the vaguely whimsical style in these, but something about these stories failed to connect.
January 12, 2010
i really enjoyed these three stories - the last less than the previous two, but they make a nice summer read.
June 9, 2010
I would have given this two stars except I enjoyed "The Night People" better than the other two stories.
October 9, 2012
Great fun. Three totally different stories, each with a unique twist on life, and sometimes on time.
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