Jon Clinch
Author of Finn
About the Author
Works by Jon Clinch
Associated Works
My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (2012) — Contributor — 574 copies, 15 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 20th Century
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Oneida, New York
- Places of residence
- Vermont, USA
- Education
- Syracuse University
- Occupations
- English teacher
folk singer
metalworker
illustrator
typeface designer
house painter (show all 8)
copywriter
advertising executive - Relationships
- Clinch, Wendy (spouse)
- Awards and honors
- Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year Award
- Short biography
- Jon Clinch is an American novelist. Originally from upstate Oneida, New York, he graduated from Syracuse University and went on to teach American literature. Formerly creative director for various advertising agencies in the Philadelphia area, he now lives in Vermont. He has written stories which have been published in MSS magazine.
In February 2007 Random House published his first novel, Finn, a critically acclaimed backstory about "Pap Finn," Huckleberry Finn's father from Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Named an American Library Association Notable Book, Finn was also named one of the best novels of 2007 by the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and Book Sense. It was also shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle's first-ever Best Recommended List and the Sargent First Novel Prize.
Clinch's second novel, Kings of the Earth, was published by Random House in July 2010 to wide critical acclaim, and was named #1 on the annual summer reading list published by O, The Oprah Magazine.
Marley, his reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, was published by Simon & Schuster's Atria imprint in October 2019. Reviewing the book in the New York Times, critic Simon Callow wrote, "By some uncanny act of artistic appropriation, [Clinch] has, without imitating Dickens, entered into the phantasmagoric realm that is the great novelist’s quintessential territory. Clinch has done something remarkable in Marley, not merely offering a parergon to Dickens’s little masterpiece, imagining the soil out of which the action of A Christmas Carol grows, but creating a free-standing dystopian universe, a hideous vision of nascent capitalism in which nothing is real and every transaction is a fraud.
Members
Reviews
This novel centers around the life of Ulysses Grant, Civil War general and American president. It focuses on his family life, especially his relationship with his father-in-law, wife Julia, and children. I found the dynamics between Grant and his wife Julia's family, who had strong Southern sympathies, to be particularly interesting, especially when an enslave woman who was serving Julia escapes. I do wish the novel had dwelled more on these clear contradictions within Grant and those closest to him, but this book keeps the story moving along. While I wanted more about Julia especially, this novel does make for an interesting read, especially for those interested in the American Civil War.… (more)
Engrossing fictional biography of General Ulysses S. Grant, covering his meeting with Julia Dent, a Southern belle, later his wife, the Civil War years, with his part in it, postwar years, including those as president, his part in Reconstruction, and scandals. He was involved, due to his naivety in matters financial and too trusting nature but insisted on paying back every cent of his monstrous debts. To that end, though suffering from throat cancer [from many years of smoking cigars--20 or more a day] he persisted in writing his memoirs, urged on by Julia and by Mark Twain.
I liked that the author covered his personal life with Julia and his family. Brilliant writing style. Very readable.… (more)
I liked that the author covered his personal life with Julia and his family. Brilliant writing style. Very readable.… (more)
Jon Clinch's take on the backstory of A Christmas Carol's Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge.
Recently, and for far from the first time, I found myself reviewing a book that I actually did mostly enjoy but, when I the time came to sit down and talk about it, I realized most of the specific things I had to say sounded pretty negative. Well, here's a somewhat rarer example of the exact opposite thing. I find most of what I have to say about this one is very positive, and yet somehow it just didn't add up to a reading experience I loved.
The good stuff? The writing is rather lovely: not showy, but self-assured and smooth. The way the novel answers the question of just what sins Marley committed in his life to merit the chains that would later bind his spirit is so perfectly apt that I can only imagine that the entire book was written just to use that particular idea. Scrooge's character is explored a bit in a way that gives us some insight into how he became the miserable (but not irrevocably miserable) person that he was. The work engages with Dickens without feeling the need to ape his style, and certainly without being remotely parodic. It also raises some questions about themes of redemption and changes of heart that are much more subtle, and much more interestingly uncomfortable, than those in Dickens' feel-good tale. There are even a few rather poignant moments, towards the end.
All of which is great! And yet, I confess I just... kept wanting to put it down. And for all that good stuff, it felt like it lacked something I very much wanted it to have. Or maybe a couple of somethings, the first of which is a sense of narrative drive. For all that we do, in fact, know exactly where this story is going, for much of the novel it still doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere. There's also some sense of groundedness or detail that's lacking, too, which I felt most keenly once Scrooge starts working around to clock to deal with some problems Marley's caused him. We know what goal he's working towards, but never how he's working towards it, and all that scribbling and calculating he's doing just feels like an empty placeholder. (Really, he might was well just be muttering "business, business, business" to himself all day.)
Some part of me is wondering whether Clinch didn't have that fantastic idea about Marley's awful history but then just wasn't entirely sure what to actually do with it, while some other part is wondering if it's not just me being a big ol' hard-to-satisfy humbug.… (more)
Recently, and for far from the first time, I found myself reviewing a book that I actually did mostly enjoy but, when I the time came to sit down and talk about it, I realized most of the specific things I had to say sounded pretty negative. Well, here's a somewhat rarer example of the exact opposite thing. I find most of what I have to say about this one is very positive, and yet somehow it just didn't add up to a reading experience I loved.
The good stuff? The writing is rather lovely: not showy, but self-assured and smooth. The way the novel answers the question of just what sins Marley committed in his life to merit the chains that would later bind his spirit is so perfectly apt that I can only imagine that the entire book was written just to use that particular idea. Scrooge's character is explored a bit in a way that gives us some insight into how he became the miserable (but not irrevocably miserable) person that he was. The work engages with Dickens without feeling the need to ape his style, and certainly without being remotely parodic. It also raises some questions about themes of redemption and changes of heart that are much more subtle, and much more interestingly uncomfortable, than those in Dickens' feel-good tale. There are even a few rather poignant moments, towards the end.
All of which is great! And yet, I confess I just... kept wanting to put it down. And for all that good stuff, it felt like it lacked something I very much wanted it to have. Or maybe a couple of somethings, the first of which is a sense of narrative drive. For all that we do, in fact, know exactly where this story is going, for much of the novel it still doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere. There's also some sense of groundedness or detail that's lacking, too, which I felt most keenly once Scrooge starts working around to clock to deal with some problems Marley's caused him. We know what goal he's working towards, but never how he's working towards it, and all that scribbling and calculating he's doing just feels like an empty placeholder. (Really, he might was well just be muttering "business, business, business" to himself all day.)
Some part of me is wondering whether Clinch didn't have that fantastic idea about Marley's awful history but then just wasn't entirely sure what to actually do with it, while some other part is wondering if it's not just me being a big ol' hard-to-satisfy humbug.… (more)
1 
bragan | 9 other reviews | Dec 15, 2023 |
bragan | 9 other reviews | Dec 15, 2023 | Lists
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I only remember the broadest strokes of Twain's book, but this book stands on its own. The language of the book is more Cormac McCarthy than Mark Twain, though less lyrical and more gothic than either.… (more)