Finn by Jon Clinch Reviewed by Tom Chiarella
Esquire
"Say what you want ? that I am damaged, that I am a coward, that I lack a kind of literary vision ? but I never wanted to live like Huckleberry Finn. The dark, slow-moving river terrified me. The adults who surrounded him seemed delusional, dangerous, and ? worse ? indifferent to him. He seemed to wrestle with the demons of a culture that was pretty willing to leave him to rot on the river. Way too much for a kid from Rochester, New York. But that doesn't mean I didn't care about Huck or wonder what lead to his glimmering half-life ? one foot in the mud, one foot caught in the leap toward escape...." Read the entire Esquire review.