Finn -- Jon Clinch

This book is getting a huge push from the publisher, and the author's doing a lot of publicity, with video on YouTube and so on. I'd say it's likely to be a big hit. It's the story of Pap Finn, father of the famous Huckleberry Finn, and the author's idea is that the items found by Huck and Jim in the "House of Death" chapter in Huck's own book provide clues to the life and death of Pap.

Finn's story is a dark one. Pap is a bigoted, violent drunk who is attracted to black women. He's also a murderer. He knows what he is, and he doesn't seem interested in reforming.

Some scenes in the novel are rewrites of scenes in Mark Twain's book about Huck, with of course a different spin. I think Clinch does a good job with these.

The book jumps around in time, which can be confusing if you're not ready for it. I didn't have any trouble figuring out what was happening when, but the author doesn't give you any clues like Faulkner's italics in The Sound and the Fury. The writing style is more literary than not. How you feel about it might depend on how you feel about literary writing in general. I enjoyed reading it, and the book's sense of time and the river is powerful. So is its portrait of Finn and his family: his father, a judge; his brother Will, a lawyer, and though her appearances are few and brief, his mother. Finn is a driven man, and even he doesn't know what drives him. He's an outcast from society who knows he could never live like most other men, even if he doesn't know why. He doesn't think about it. Thinking isn't his strong point.

From my point of view, Clinch made one bold misstep in the book. I can't tell you what it is without spoiling things, so I won't. All I can say is that I don't think it jibes with Twain's book at all. Clinch explains his reasoning in an afterword, but I wasn't convinced.

If the publisher's plan works, this book's going to be a bestseller and a topic of conversation. Check it out.