Mark Twain left Huckleberry Finn’s father dead in a room surrounded by oddities – a wooden leg, two black masks and women’s underclothing among walls marked with grotesque pictures and words. Jon Clinch, in his first novel “Finn,” takes these details through what he considers their likely path and end.
“Finn” is about Huck’s father, although three Finns are major characters, making it a little confusing. There’s Huck; his father, known in the novel only as “Finn”; and Finn’s father, “the Judge.” Clinch uses Twain’s masterpiece as a skeleton to build the character of Finn. He takes the moments Huck’s father appears in Twain’s novel and fills in the missing pieces.
Finn is, of course, abusive, greedy and a drunk, just as he was in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” That goes without saying. What Clinch adds is the depth of his evil – usually a direct result of his deep-rooted racism.
Finn loves black women, and that makes his racism a double-edged sword. Not once is he attracted to a white woman in the novel. He notices only the beauty of black women, and eventually he becomes romantically involved with an ex-slave named Mary. Their union results in a son. Hence Huck.
By making Huck a mulatto, his father is able to both love and despise him. Even though Finn is full of evil, he is actually able to love, albeit with a demented sort of love, but love just the same. Before Huck’s birth, Finn fantasizes about the child and when he arrives he delights in the boy’s mischief, “for even in the cradle his son is so full of mischief that looking at him is like looking into a mirror capable of reflecting the past.”
Finn is envious of Mary because she can read and write and he tries to stop Huck from going to school so his son won’t be smarter than he is.
Like any abusive relationship, there are moments of affection. Finn defends Huck’s honor when a barman makes a snide comment about his son’s heritage. Without giving too much away, this is the moment the book turns and we begin to actually care a little about Finn. His convoluted loyalty to Mary and Huck is pathetically endearing. In fact, when he does anything half human, such as fawning over his newborn son or being kind to Mary for a few minutes, your heart softens a little for him. It is these sorts of contradictory feelings that Mary and Huck also have for Finn – subjective and compulsory love for their oppressor.
Finn tires of Mary and Huck, mostly because they cut into his whiskey fund by requiring food and clothing. Of course, Mary leaves him and the widow Douglas takes them in. While they are gone, Finn forgets them until Huck finds some gold and his father hears about it. It is then that Finn wishes “he could wring the boy out and get six thousand dollars in gold.”
Finn is filled with greed and the desire to play the father figure again and the novel begins to feel more like Twain’s. Any gentleness that Clinch gave Finn in the beginning of the novel is taken away and only the grotesque and greedy remain.
Just as in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Finn must meet his maker. How that happens is surprising and all too perfect. The novel is worth reading if only for the surprise and unexpected ending.
Clinch’s novel doesn’t have the magical quality that Twain’s masterpiece did, and at times it is a bit confusing. With three generations of Finns running around, and a time span of more than a decade, the transitions and parallel storylines are confusing. Overall, though, Clinch offers a unique perspective of one of the most hideous of characters in classic fiction and does so with a brave new twist.
Renee Warner is a freelance writer in Atlanta.
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Finn
By Jon Clinch
Viking, 304 pages, $23.95
