This is an important, useful book for students and fans of Jack Finney. It is the single, most complete compilation of his work to date. Invaluably, it lists nearly all of Finney’s works, with summaries and reviews.

Seabrook builds on, and expands previous outlines of Jack Finney’s work, such as Jon L. Breen’s The Fiction of Jack Finney (in They’re Here...: invasion of the body snatchers: a tribute). Where Seabrook excels is in both scope and detail. He includes short stories published in magazines, books, movies, television and play performances. While references to these works already existed in such places as Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and various other places, Seabrook has done a great service by aggregating these sources into a single volume.

Finney’s short stories, including serialized novels, actually number 60 rather than the 59 listed, and cover a slightly longer period. Missing is “Someone Who Knows Told Me …” from the December 1943 issue of Cosmopolitan. Seabrook may be forgiven for not including this story. It is Finney’s shortest; 577 words. As an advertising copywriter at the mid-point of WWII, Finney was doing his part for the War Advertising Council, echoing the Office of War Information's (OWI) “Loose Lips Sink Ships” campaign, driving home the point that careless remarks by otherwise patriotic citizens can aid enemy agents, resulting in the death of US servicemen. It is notable for the mention of Finney’s step-father, Frank Berry, and for its mood, used so well in The Body Snatchers: There are enemies who look like us, but aren’t us.

Also included is a chapter titled “The Galesburg Letters.” Seabrook publishes letters between Finney and various representatives of his college alma mater, Knox College in Galesburg, IL. While Seabrook is providing a service by publishing these letters, their utility is uncertain. Beyond small details of Finney’s college days -- and his home address in Mill Valley -- what comes across is Finney’s well-known shyness. His daughter described him as “intensely private,” and to many who sought to interview him, he was polite, but unavailable -- until he was publishing a new book. Then, he had his list of who he wanted to interview him.

On the other hand, it might have been more useful to republish non-fiction articles Finney wrote for the New York Times, such as “Where Has Old-Fashioned Fun Gone?” (1970), or “When Felony Had Style” (1971).

Seabrook appropriately titled the very brief biographical chapter, A Life Kept Hidden. Details regarding Finney’s private life are not readily available, and again, Seabrook has done a service by compiling what details there are. The veracity of these details however, is not certain. Many statements are couched in language like “he is said to have divorced his wife” or “Finney’s mother was described as an accomplished seamstress” or “Finney appears to have a half-sister.” [Italics added] In truth, almost like a criminal who wants to be caught, Finney hid details of his life in his stories. For example, the return address Charley’s psychiatrist uses on his 1894 letter from Galesburg in The Third Level, was Finney’s Galesburg address while he attended Knox College.

Seabrook also includes a bibliography, but a good number of the references are fan websites and critiques of Finney’s works. While not denigrating fan websites -- mine is at http://homepage.mac.com/cssfan/jackfinney/work_date.htm -- the internet is notorious for repeating erroneous information. For example, planète ubik, and other sites display images purported to be Jack Finney, but are in fact photographs of an alumnus of Texas A&M University, also named Jack Finney.

Much of the original content in Stealing Through Time is critique. Therefore, inclusion of popular reviews in the bibliography is reasonable. Personally, I’m not much interested in how others evaluate any work of literature. I’d prefer to read it, and come to my own conclusions. Therefore, I often found myself at odds with Seabrook about his evaluation of a Finney story. There is a tendency for example, to discount all of Finney’s non-time-travel stories -- and they account for more than half of what Finney wrote -- as “fluff”; the stuff that’s left over when a pod duplicates a human. But Finney felt otherwise. Without benefit of his agent, he personally approached publishers in England for example, to publish a collection of nearly a dozen Timberlake Ryan stories he had written for Collier’s. Apparently, he hoped what was not salable in the US might enjoy a better market overseas.

The bibliography also seems to be skewed to East coast sources. This may not be surprising since Seabrook lives in New Jersey, and while Finney lived twice as long in California as he did in New York, his books Time and Again, and From Time to Time let New York claim him. But we locals also have something to say. For example, Don Keown’s December 20, 1977 article in the Marin Independent-Journal quotes Finney as saying “the idea for ‘The Night People’ came out of a belated admission a few years back by his son, Ken, now 21, that when he was 10 or 11 he would get up at 2 a.m., leave the Finney house by the window of his room, join his chums outside, and roam the Strawberry area in search of adventure.” This fact would have been a useful addition to Seabrook’s summary of The Night People.

Any criticism of Stealing Through Time though, is armchair quarter-backing. Hopefully, it will be the start, not the end, of serious literature about my favorite author, Jack Finney. ( )