Review of Finn by Jon Clinch

I loved Finn, Jon Clinch's first novel. I loved the style, the feel of the narrative. As one can discover from any brief review, Clinch takes Huckleberry Finn's character Pap and gives him a past offstage from Twain's main action--and a present, since Pap Finn's death is one of the events of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, its circumstances mysterious. I have recently read other novels that build on classic texts, an intriguing form of reader response--a kind of fan fiction taken to high literary levels? This is one of the best. Clinch takes as his premise that speculation advanced by critics and readers of Twain that Huck Finn is himself Black and envisions Pap as the White ne'er-do-well who can't stay away from Black women. Thus Huck's biracial status places him in a tricky position along Illinois-Missouri border, his status changing as he moves from his orignal home with Pap to his home with the Widow.

But this is Pap's story, and throughout much of it, Huck plays little part, although Clinch has made maximum use of Twain's details, giving a history to the objects in the river-wrecked house in which Huck and Jim find Finn's body, along with writing and pictures on the walls. Finn is not a pleasant character. He is filthy and uncouth and opportunistic and, for a surprisingly long time, a survivor. He is simultaneously drawn to Black women and a virulent racist, and his father has disowned him and threatened him with the death sentence for a murder he didn't commit (but not for the murders he does commit) because he has so flagrantly disregarded the father's values. A hopeless alcoholic, he squanders the money that comes his way, and the money he hasn't come up with yet, to keep himself in drink, most often the cheapest whiskey he can cadge, even the woods-brewed poison of a local moonshiner. Drinking makes him randy, touchy, aggressive, violent with the woman that he clearly comes to value, Huck's mother. When she is not caring for his home and cooking regularly for him, he lives in squalor and foregoes nourishment.

There's sometimes something likable in him, though. He lives off the river and is handy enough in his way, and he cherishes the boy at first. The turning point in his relationship with the woman, Mary, though, comes with his year-long imprisonment, because his absence means that she must taken in laundry to earn some money, that she runs up some debt for food, and that a kindly neighbor has taken care of a couple items around her house. Finn is not only fiercely independent (except from his brother, who has financed his household) but also jealous and distrustful, and once he's been to prison, whatever peace and stability have come to him in family life are precariously balanced on that knife-edge of distrust. When his violence finally drives Mary away altogether, he feels as much relief from responsibility as any other emotion. But before that point comes, we see him teaching his way of life and values to Huck, and thus he makes a substantial contribution to the charm that Twain's Huck has for us. From Mary, Huck acquires the folklore that endears him to the boys he meets once he's living in the Widow's household. For the most part, he rejects her, though, as his mind is poisoned by his rare contacts with his father.

The novel has a strong Faulknerian feel, some of the same darkness, pathos, and humor. I'd love to quote a couple of sentences or paragraphs as examples of Clinch's mesmerizing and original style, sometimes nearly as leisurely as Faulkner's, but I don't want to violate copyright restrictions. Read the novel yourself, to see what I mean, to select a couple memorable passages you'd like to share. After you've read this, you'll go back to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I suspect, because you'll be reminded of the wonders of life on the river and moral dilemmas shaped by conflicting values at a crucial moment in our national past.