Buy the Book, Kid: Finn

The deluge from CapeTown is beginning to make us all look bad, so I figured I’d comment on a book I just read. Of course, the most recent book posts have been charmingly introduced with a Henny Youngman story that introduces a catchphrase for writing about literature. Now I’m left choosing to ride the coattails of the aforementioned story or to try and compete with Henny Youngman. My only brush with comedic fame involves Captain Morgan and Andy Dick, and ends not with an autograph but with a harrowing tale of attempted molestation.

I think I’ll go with “Buy the book, kid.”

I just finished the book Finn, by John Clinch. This is one of those rare occasions where an online review is far better than one in the paper, by the way, because Clinch has done what he can to provide online resources for his fans. These resources include an Amazon blog and a website full of related information.

I started and finished Finn on the 16^th. The release date wasn’t until the 20^th, but I knew someone at Barnes and Noble would screw it up. I preordered, and got a call on the 16^th that it was in. The clerk took it off of a pile of other books, near an email taped to the desk describing just how important it was to not sell Harry Potter early. It’s nice to know that under no circumstances can a tale of wizardry escape a minute early, (it literally spelled out the minute) but a significant step forward with some of American literature’s most enduring characters drops four days ahead of schedule.

Pap Finn’s death (unbeknownst to Huck, he was the dead man in the floating house) in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a striking scene. Clinch has decided that the circumstances surrounding his death are deserving of their own story. In a way, Finn gives more of a look into Pap’s head than Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer does to their protagonists.

The story does not spare any details in its description of one of the most pitiless characters ever created. Murder, battery, accessory to cannibalism, etc. It also covers Pap's childhood. One of the risks of providing a backstory to such an unlikable person is the temptation of providing a childhood that absolves the sins of adulthood. While the semi-shadowy figure of Huck’s grandfather provides little in the way of nurturing, though, Clinch avoids granting remission.

The most interesting part of Pap Finn is the way in which he professes racism while finding black women irresistible. In fact, Clinch follows the school of thought that claims Huck is light skinned, but part black. Racism of this type has always been fascinating to me. I grew up in a place where plenty of my white friends would not hesitate to tell a few racist jokes (when in all white company)on the same night that they would have a black student crash at their house.

I’ve always been shocked by people who claim that they don't like blacks, but that their black friend is "one of the good ones.”

Can someone have a black friend / partner and still hate blacks?

"Buy the Book, Kid"

When I was no more than five years old, I accompanied my parents and a family friend to a small comedy show, headlined by none other than my father’s favorite comedian, The King of the One-Liners, Henny Youngman. It was some minor club – I remember it incorrectly as an airport lounge, near Worchester, Mass. The man was deep into his eighties, donning a snappy suit and accompanied by his ubiquitous violin (which he played intermittently and badly. For comic effect?). I’m not, as a 24 year old, actually about to say this, but you may be too young to remember him. You may recognize Henny when he appears like a glass of aged wine at the end of the famous Copa Cabana shot in Goodfellas. He was the man who coined the phrase: “Take my wife…Please!” My father loved this man and therefore I loved him too.

After the show, Henny was seated at a cluster of tables – a makeshift dais – signing books for the small crowd that had gathered. I waited in line, my new book, 500 One-Liners, held out in my shaky young hands, and when I was granted an audience with one my father’s comedic hero, I poured out my admiration with five-year-old sincerity. Henny, with infinite wit -- possessed only by those who have spent a life honing their comedic skills in countless supper clubs, tv specials, and Borscht Belt Resorts – looked up at me with those Blood Hound eyes showing no emotion but exhaustion and said, “Buy the book, kid.” I loved Henny Youngman.

On my bookshelf today sits this book with Henny’s autograph.

This post is merely an explanation of a series of posts to follow: my humble book recommendations.