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Finn
A Novel
by Jon Clinch


9.3

based on 12 reviews
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based on 9 votes
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In his debut novel which springs from Twain's classic story, Jon Clinch delves into the history and heart of one of American literature's most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn's father Pap.

Random House, 304 pages
02/20/2007
$23.95

ISBN: 1400065917

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Bookslut Mariya Strauss

Jon Clinch has turned in a nearly perfect first book, a creative response that matches "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in intensity and tenacious soul-searching about racism.

Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese

In the saga of this tormented human being, Clinch brings us a radical (and endlessly debatable) new take on Twain's classic, and a stand-alone marvel of a novel.

Publishers Weekly

Clinch lyrically renders the Mississippi River's ceaseless flow, while revealing Finn's brutal contradictions, his violence, arrogance and self-reproach. [18 Dec 2006, p.41]

USA Today Bob Minzesheimer

Finn is a triumph of imagination and graceful writing...I'd like to think that the cantankerous Twain would welcome the company.

Washington Post Ron Charles

Clinch reimagines Finn in a strikingly original way, replacing Huck's voice with his own magisterial vision--one that's nothing short of revelatory.

The New Yorker

Clinch conjures the world of pre-Civil War America in all the complexity of its contradictions.

San Francisco Chronicle Katherine Hill

In spite of this writer's penchant for detail, he has created in the character of Finn a bloody, haunting enigma.

Christian Science Monitor Erik Spanberg

Considering the heady literary terrain Clinch hopes to master, the novel succeeds better than anyone other than its author could have expected.

The New York Times Book Review Ron Powers

Jon Clinch possesses the imagination and technical skills that will produce wonderful novels. Perhaps he needs to discover his own literary universe, rather than borrow from such as Twain and McCarthy. We been there before.

Houston Chronicle William J. Cobb

The novel is certainly well-told...[But] the decision to cast a vision of the world through such an implacable, and distant, bogeyman makes for a sour experience.

Los Angeles Times Steve Almond

Dark and often gripping, though marred by stylistic excess and a shortage of pathos.

Chicago Tribune Art Winslow

Clinch is a talented writer who crafts many gripping scenes in Finn...[But] as a novelist, he manages to undercut his own effectiveness with some overloaded sentences, lit-crit phrasing and strained syntax, making choices of language that are jarring.

The average user rating for this book is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

John A gave it a10:
Great writer. Those critics who gave it less than "outstanding" are idiots.

Beth J gave it a10:
Absolutely gorgeous and harrowing. The best book I've read in maybe five or ten years, and the best book my book club has read EVER.

James P gave it an8:
What a grand surprise. A book that gives you a sense of pre-Civil War America, and allows you to feel the adolecence of this country, with racism and violence at the very soul of society.

Dan C gave it a9:
Brilliant reimagining of Huck's peripheral 'pap'. The use of present tense and the constant shifting back and forth in time work so well in creating an immediacy and tension along with the almost constand overhang of dread which comes from such a frightening but complex schizophrenic character. It does dovetail very well into the few events in Huckleberry Finn in which the father appears. I had to re-read some dialog parts to clearly understand who was speaking at times. Highly recommended.

Eric C gave it a9:
I have read Twain, but unfortunatly never read Huckleberry Finn. But I took a chance and handed over the cash for this one, and it deserves all the praise its receiving. Finn is an ever changing character here that falls before temptation and seems completely awair of everything he does, even of his own doom. Fans of Huck's original adventure must find it even more exciting, with sublte ties between the two and nothing is done here that isn't plausible in Twain's world.

Lois W gave it a10:
the writing in this book is spectacular

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Finn A Novel by Jon Clinch

Finn
A Novel
by Jon Clinch