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 in a landscape at … landscape at once familiar and mythic. It begins and ends with a lifeless body-flayed and stripped of all identifying marks-drifting down the Mississippi. The circumstances of the murder, and the secret of the victim’s identity, shape Finn’s story as they will shape his life and his death.
Along the way Clinch introduces a cast of unforgettable characters: Finn’ s terrifying father, known only as the Judge; his sickly, sycophantic brother, Will; blind Bliss, a secretive moonshiner; the strong and quick-witted Mary, a stolen slave who becomes Finn’s mistress; and of course young Huck himself. In daring to re-create Huck for a new generation, Clinch gives us a living boy in all his human complexity-not an icon, not a myth, but a real child facing vast possibilities in a world alternately dangerous and bright.
“Finn “is a novel about race; about paternity in its many guises; about the shame of a nation recapitulated by the shame of one absolutely unforgettable family. Above all, Finn reaches back into the darkest waters of America’s past to fashion something compelling, fearless, and new.
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Simply brilliant…
I’ve read Mark Twain’s ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN at least twice, and possibly three times—I’m honestly not certain. I may very well read it again one of these days because it’s a favorite—and because I recently read Jon Clinch’s “prequel” titled FINN, which imagines the life of Huck’s father, whom Huck referred to as “Pap.”
Known only as …
Wow! This book in genuine literature! A different, but imaginative view as a prequel to the happier classic “Huckleberry Finn”. This view is dark, violent and has a great twist on the character of Huckleberry himself (I am sure you will be surprised). This is more about Huck’s father and his family rather than Huck, but it makes the Dad both more …
I found it a little hard to follow when the timeline kept jumping back and forth. I’d have done better with some dates at the beginning of the chapter so I knew when I was reading of. The story line itself was good, answers questions one might have asked about Huck’s dad and how he came to be living with the Widow Douglas.
Depressing. Take the humor out of Mark Twain and it isn’t Twain, even if you rip off one of his characters. I lost interest in it early and quit reading it, especially after he introduced some other one-dimesional characters.
I have taaught Huck Finn for heard and never gave much thought to his dad. Bravo!!