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, morally bankrupt character) of authenticity. However, Finn is so bleak a character that I really couldn't get into his story. Had he taken more initiative, I might have cared more. Instead, Finn bullied his way through life, allowing himself to be carried along by events rather than attempt to influence those events. I think that was intentional as Finn is like the river that provides him with his identity and his livelihood--cutting its own path through the land, a path that is not always the best or most obvious. There were some intriguing twists--Finn's black sheep status in a wealthy family, the sadistic and racist Judge Finn (who is the true villain of the novel), the revelation that Huckleberry is a mulatto. While I can't praise the novel, I can admire the craft and care that went into its writing, and I don't think Mark Twain would have been the least bit offended. In fact, I suspect he would have been delighted with Clinch's original take on the story of Pap Finn. ( )

I like reading books that take a closer look at a minor character from classic literature, but I literally couldn't stomach this one. As much as I wanted to reach the conclusion, I was too disturbed by the graphic descriptions of violence to keep reading. While I typically appreciate vivid and realistic narratives, in this case it was too disturbing. This book has an interesting premise, but sensitive readers should proceed with caution. ( )

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 intent—he thoroughly struck out with me. Although part of what nauseated me about Finn are his deep-seated racial prejudices, that in and of itself wasn’t really enough to bring forth the feelings of disgust as in that regard he was simply a product of the times and the household that he lived in. No, it was more the utter self-centeredness of the character that sometimes left me with my jaw hanging open. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone so selfish, so full of excuses for his despicable actions and so concerned about his own skin above all else! It took me awhile to warm up to the reader, but after an hour or so I knew I had to keep listening and after awhile I found his characterizations to be quite well-done. I don’t think saying “I enjoyed the book” is exactly the way to describe how I felt about it, as there was little in it that was “enjoyable,” but it was an excellent work of fiction and an insightfully plausible story of how one of America’s most notable fiction characters, Huckleberry Finn, might have been molded. Well done! ( )

Excellent novel. Darkly written, completely different, yet true to the original. Twain would have been outwardly offended, but deep inside he would be smiling and wishing that he had written this tome himself. Nifty little plot twists decorate this novel and all of the twists resolve to the ending very nicely. ( )

I finished this book just so I could understand it, and it took me that long to do so. Even though it's a little confusing the book is well worth the read. The characters and the storyline were dark, but you feel a closeness to them when your finished---and believe me it ends with a bang. ( )

It's hard to add to the work of a writer like Mark Twain. However, I think Jon Clinch did a decent job in his book. Admittedly, it has been some time since I've read Twain, but reading Clinch's book did help me to recall some of the magic of the original works and I will revisit them soon. ( )

I was anxious when I started the book because I had come across some less-than-favorable reviews. I, however, loved it. I found it to be beautifully written with an engaging story that kept my attention until the very end. I didn't want it to come to an end. ( )

Graphic Violence Warning: definitely not light reading! This is a gritty, dark study of a very disturbed and disturbing individual that will not be quickly forgotten. Clinch has resurrected the abominable Pap Finn in all his tormented, cruel, racist glory. It's hard to imagine a more despicable character unless you look at his father the Judge.

Clinch is no Mark Twain, and that's good because he's not trying to emulate someone else's writing. This is Clinch's story about the dark side of slavery and human nature. He is an extremely skillful writer whose ambitious first book stands on its own and is a real page-turner. ( )

This is a difficult book to describe - it's very good, but I can't say I enjoyed reading it. This is a dark, disturbing book, and it gives the backstory of Huckleberry Finn's father (whose first name we never learn). Clinch is an excellent writer, and his prose is the novel's greatest strength. He is able to elicit strong, visceral reactions to the extent that I had to put the book down for awhile after the "preacher" in the boat scene.

It's not a light read, at all, but well worth the effort. I hope Clinch decides to write another novel. ( )

I guess there’s a lot to praise in this book. Though, there was a lot of it that got on my nerves. I’ll touch on a few things in particular. First, Huck is half-black. Yeah. So this is some kind of hidden reason behind his progressive racial sympathies? Oh but, no, not exactly. Oh, but it comes across like that. This little example is actually a microcosm of the execution of the book, itself, now that I think of it. Clinch has a story to work with, and the degree to which he follows it or breaks from it is all up to him. Still he is bound by so many details. With the example of Huck’s mother being a black woman, Mary, I think it’s a relatively good idea from Finn’s perspective. It gives him some implied, deep character conflict. But then, Huck’s half-black? I just think that’s fucking stupid. I think—no, I know Twain would as well. Jon Clinch states, "Finn" reflects "changing critical sensibilities." That’s the problem. It’s all out bedlam between the original characters of Twain, Clinch’s new “critical sensibilities,” and the necessity to re-invent, resurrect, what-have-you, a character that Twain wrote as a one-dimensional drunk who would have no power over the young Huck, save the boy’s misguided sympathy. Clinch’s hands are tied to a degree, and all the sharp, jutting, edges he creates by attempting to wrest a 21st century novel from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, means it’s going to lack the refinement and polish of a new idea. So why didn’t Clinch just have a new idea? I don’t think this book was a good idea. But that’s me. Finn spends way too much time in that realm of the one-dimensional. Oh, but there’s that excuse of his past and how it all shut him up inside himself. Yes, he gave us an excuse. Is that a reason to follow a one-dimensional character round the majority of 283 pages, all the while the whole flashback format being used as a justification, but just coming across as annoying? I’d put the book down, so would others, if it weren’t for its pitch. In the end, that’s all that saves it. ( )

Mark Twain he's not.
As I read all the glowing reviews for Jon Clinch's novel, I can't help but wonder what I missed.
While the author's concept for this piece of parallel literature borders on brillance, I found "Finn" hard to get into and -- in many areas -- extemely dull. Clinch's tendency to overdose readers on details and meander through vignettes was annoying.
But I have this nagging feeling that it's me, given the rave reviews "Finn" has enjoyed. Perhaps I need to revisit Mark Twain's original tome, a book I haven't read since I was 13 or 14. Admittedly, I barely remember the plot line, let alone the nuances of Twain's characters. ( )

Huckleberry Finn's dad's story ( )

Astonishing. This is a deep, resonant, and emotionally painful work of literature. Elegant writing is often enough to enthrall a reader; when elegance is employed in the service of giving voice to the unspeakable heart of the Great American Novel? Wow. ( )

Marcia Purcell:

Finn owes a giant debt to Huckleberry Finn as the main character is Huckleberry's reprobate father--and a very nasty piece of work he is indeed. From the first image in this first novel--a body, skinned from head to toe, floats slowly down the Mississippi River--the reader is grabbed by the throat, and wide-eyed, forced to observe the progression of life (and death) on the very edge of civilization by the edge of a mighty river. The novel is a polished jewel of language--sharp, cutting. Most remarkably, when the dialog is left unfinished (a frequent device of the author) you still know exactly how the conversation goes. There are scenes so painful and horrifying that you have to put the book down to catch your breath, and then you realize how loudly your heart is beating. And yet, looking back, I wouldn't have missed reading this book. It's just amazing. Remember this name, Jon Clinch. I'm already looking forward to his next book.

The story of a forgotten soul in the American South. Depicts the powerful impacts of parenting - esp. the father-son relationship. Dark, thrilling, hard to put down. ( )

A weird ass novel. It kept me reading just to see what would happen next. Considering I hated reading Huck Finn in high school many moons ago, that's saying something. It's written in present tense and bounces around from one time to another, but considering Finn -- Huck's father, btw -- is drunk most of the time, I suppose that's to be expected. ( )

I like stories that build on classic tales. Gregory Maguire's Wicked, which tells the story of Oz from the perspective of the Witch of the West, and Mirror Mirror which recreates Snow White's stepmother as Lucretia Borgia; Jean Rys's Wide Sargasso Sea which tells of the childhood of Mrs. Rochester; and Timothy Findlay's Not Wanted on the Voyage which looks at Noah's family, are among my favourite books. Having re-read Huckleberry Finn just last year, I was immediately drawn to Jon Clinch's Finn.

When I was about 75% through the book, my husband asked me if it was good. I found I couldn't answer.

This story of Huck's father, known only as "Finn", is violent and the main character has few, if any, redeeming qualities. He is a violent alcoholic and a murderer. If he wasn't Huck's father, I would have had no interest in him at all.

Mr. Clinch has introduced an interesting and plausible twist to the story of Huck: his mother is black. Finn's racist ideology, combined with his desire for black women, bring a larger perspective to his inner struggles with alcohol and with his own father.

Was it a "good" book? Still hard to say. Well written, at times shockingly hard to read. Not easily forgettable -- this will stay with you. Mr. Clinch has done a job I think Mark Twain would have liked, and has made a positive contribution to deepening the story of Huckleberry Finn. ( )

It has been said there are no true original stories. Each story is built on a previously written story. For example, a story we are all familiar with in Genesis, Noah’s Ark, is found in the Hebrew Torah, the Islamic Quran, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Various versions of the classic may be found in children’s picture books and in Sunday school lessons, too.

Other literature of late expands on classics with a variety of success. Two come to mind: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is based on the Biblical story of Dinah, and Wicked by Gregory Maguire is based on The Wizard of Oz.

New on library shelves and bookstore displays, Finn by Jon Clinch is based on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Main character, known only as Finn throughout the book, isn’t Huck but rather his father. A mean, nasty bigot of a man who only cares for his son when money enters the picture, somehow makes for a sympathetic character.

Despicable characters tend to be plot drivers, but audience losers. An author takes a chance when he creates a main character so hateful. Why? Most readers want to empathize or step into the personality instead of wish them dead. Finn is lustful towards black woman, abusive to children, and slightly insane. Not really a person one would like to meet in the real world or read about.

Yet, author Clinch works in our sympathy for the alcoholic. In the first chapter, three young boys steal fish from Finn’s trout line. Finn, in search of drink, stumbles upon them mid-crime. Two of the boys bail, but one is left trying to remove a hook from his palm. The unfortunate takes a backhand from Finn, which knocks him out and the hook free. Then our antihero is seen tenderly removing the fish from the boat’s hull.

The book opens with an excerpt from Huckleberry Finn. Jim and Huck, while on the run, enter a cabin containing the body of a murdered man; who happens to be Huck’s father. The seedy room is strewn with “greasy cards,” “old whiskey bottles,” and “a couple of masks made out of black cloth.” The plaster walls shown “the ignorantest kind of words and pictures, made with charcoal.”

This scene sets the stage, from murderous start to vindicated end. Finn, although evolving from Huckleberry Finn, stands alone as an original. ( )

Have you ever read a book that, when completed, leaves you with a "space" of sorts? You're not quite sure what to think about the book - you determine it was good - but to analyze it leaves you speechless.

That's how I feel about Finn.

For sure, Finn is not for the faint of heart. Many parts of the book are downright disturbing. Finn is not a hero and not to be loved by its readers. But like a car accident that you can't help but watch, you follow Finn through this story for better or worse. There are times when you think he will redeem himself, but then he does something even more deplorable than the page before.

He's a jerk. A bastard. A racist and sexist pig. And you can't help but read more about him. True raw and grit, it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. And you may even enjoy every minute of it. ( )

I have long been an admirer of Mark Twain's work, fiction and non-fiction alike. That admiration, and the negative comments that I heard about Jon Clinch's first novel, Finn, almost convinced me to ignore the book. But after seeing comments about Finn on two of the blogs that I regularly read, book/daddy and A Garden Carried in the Pocket, I couldn't resist any longer. And I'm happy that I didn't.

Finn is not an easy book to read because, in its own way, it is even more horrifying than the fantastical books by writers such as Thomas Harris who splash gore around to such a degree that their books lose all sense of realism. The horrible crimes that are committed in Finn, on the other hand, always make the reader cringe simply because they seem to be happening to real people in a real world. As is so often the case in a man like Finn, he is the product of cold and abusive parents who warped him from the beginning. He is in constant rebellion against his father, a town judge who rules his courtroom and his home with an iron fist and who has no more sympathy for his sons than he does for the criminals he sees in court.

Clinch, of course, begins with the world created by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn but he fleshes out that world in a way that Twain himself was unable to do in the period in which he wrote. Using incidents and characters from Twain's book, Clinch provides the back story to Huck's tale that explains much of what Twain had to leave unsaid in the original.

The elder Finn depends on the Mississippi River for his very life. The river provides him with the catfish that he sells or exchanges in town for the supplies that keep him alive. More importantly to Finn, it is the sale of those same fish that make it possible for him to consume the amount of alcohol that makes life worth living for him. Equally important, the Mississippi is always there to cover a man's sins and, as the book begins, one of those sins, a dead woman who has been skinned, is floating down the middle of the river toward town. But since Finn is a psychopath this is hardly the last of his crimes that the reader will witness.

The most controversial aspect of the novel is Clinch's contention that Huck was a mulatto whose mother had been purchased off a steamboat in slave territory and taken back to Illinois against her will. That Huckleberry Finn was a black child is not a new theory, and Clinch has made that possibility the centerpiece of his novel. That fact alone determines the ultimate fate of not only Finn but of Mary, Huck's mother, and it leads to the complete moral collapse of Judge Finn.

This may not be an easy book to read, and I don't feel that I should say that I enjoyed it, but it is definitely one that will stay with me for a while. I've read many books that I can barely remember any details of just a year or two later. Finn is in no danger of becoming one of those.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )

This was a great book, although now I really want to re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The author did a wonderful job of setting the scene in Mark Twain World and of integrating the Huckleberry Finn story which I think is delightful. The language with which Clinch writes is beautiful. I completely enjoyed it. The only thing I found mildly annoying is that Finn never got a first name. I think, based on how and why Clinch wrote the book, that's completely consistent. But it really verged on awkward several times that he did NOT have a first name. ( )

Who can resist the temptation to learn the dark secrets of Pap Finn, Huckleberry Finn's alcoholic and abusive father, and how he ended up floating down the Mississippi River inside a house with a bullet in his back. Clinch takes up the few clues from Twain's book and weaves a believable if ultimately dark and sad biography of Pap Finn from his childhood to untimely demise. It is Mark Twain with a little bit of creepy "Deliverance" wrapped around a murder mystery. Clinch crafts his words and sentences with almost poetic care creating a cadence that bounces along the river pulling up secrets from its muddy depths. ( )

savage story of Huck Finn's father
1.07

Very dark and well written novel that tells the back story of Huck Finn's father. Both brutal and realistic; made me want to re-read "The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn." ( )