Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (22 page)

Even more surprising than the numerous and lengthy book reviews were the interviews and photographs that appeared in various newspapers and magazines, allowing readers a glimpse into Finney's life that he had studiously avoided providing, with few exceptions, for decades.
Vanity Fair
published a two-page article about the novel with a picture of the author in its February 1995 issue.
Entertainment Weekly
published a two-page spread in its February 24, 1995 issue, with a photograph of the author, concluding that "You just wish the novelist in him had occasionally throttled the popular historian" (De Haven 109). Bob Ickes published a four-page article in the
New York Times
on March 19, 1995, in which he interviewed both Jack Finney and his wife and summarized prior interviews. Finney tells Ickes, '"I wish people would stop assuming I want to live in the past. I don't! It would be a lousy place to live'" (37).

Another brief interview with Finney appeared in the April 10, 1995
People
magazine, along with a review of
From Time to Time.
The writer admitted to having had problems writing the novel, but "after persistent prodding from his agent, he decided to 'struggle through and finish it'" (Sheff-Cahan 32). While he told Bob Ickes in March 1995 that he would not want to live in the past, he admits here that a visit would be nice: '"it would be fun to walk down Manhattan's West 74th in the 19th century ... and see if Edith Wharton would walk out of her house'" (32).

A new trend in book publishing led to
Time and Again
and
From Time to Time
being issued in abridged versions on cassette, with each novel read by actor Campbell Scott. A May 1995 review by Jean Palmer in
Kliatt
remarked that the abridgements concentrated on plot and left out "much of Finney's expertly detailed (and realistic) evocation of time and place."

Critical attention to the novel began with a long article by Robert 
J. Killheffer in September 1995. In short, he recommends the book based on the pleasure it brings, noting that it may not qualify as "serious literature" but that it is "serious fun" (23). Cynthia Breslin Beres compared the two Si Morley novels in an essay that appeared in
Mag-ill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature
in 1996; she concludes that the themes of the earlier novel are "somewhat blurred" in the later novel "by the generally thin plot." In 1999, Fred Blosser suggested that the novel's ending was Finney's way of "saying his own farewell to a full career of exploring the mundane and the marvellous" (56).

On November 14, 1995, Jack Finney died of pneumonia at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California. He had turned 84 on October 2, and obituaries appeared in newspapers across America and abroad. He was survived by his wife, Marguerite, his son, Kenneth, his daughter, Marguerite, and his granddaughter, Annelise, to whom his final novel had been dedicated. According to the
Dayton Daily News,
"the family said no funeral service would be held"
("Body Snatchers
Author Dies at 84").

Since his death, Jack Finney's books and stories have continued to serve as the basis for adaptations in other media, including the television movie "The Love Letter" and the Broadway musical,
Time and Again.
His best novels —
The Body Snatchers
and
Time and Again
— are also his most popular, and both have remained easy to find in libraries and bookstores. His short stories, which comprised such a large part of his career, have not been as fortunate. The original two collections
( The Third Level
and
I Love Galesburg in the Springtime)
have been out of print for years, and
About Time
is now almost twenty years old.

Jack Finney never made pretensions to serious literature, and he can best be remembered as a popular author. From his earliest stories to his last novel, he wrote about Americans and their place in history; often, his most evocative work dealt with characters that either succeeded or wished they could succeed in traveling back to an earlier time. Hopefully, his short stories will again become available to readers in the near future; his lesser known novels also deserve reprinting. In short, Jack Finney's work stands as an example for readers of the sort of lives Americans led in the middle part of the twentieth century, as well as of their longings and dreams of a simpler time in a world that grew increasingly more complicated and confusing.

SIXTEEN

The Galesburg Letters

In the early 1930s, Jack Finney attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. The yearbook issued in conjunction with his senior year,
The 1935 Gale,
includes a photo of a serious young man with glasses next to the following entry:

WALTER BRADEN FINNEY, A.B.

Forest Park

Tau Kappa Epsilon; R.O.T.C. 1,2;

Student
staff 1, 2, 3; intramural swimming

1, 2, 3, 4; varsity swimming 4 [18].

Another photograph of the graduating senior was included in the yearbook's page of members of the fraternity to which Finney belonged,
Tau Kappa Epsilon
(103).

Over the next two decades, Finney married, divorced, and married again, worked in radio and advertising, and began his career as a writer. He became well known for his short stories and wrote several novels. One story and three novels were even adapted for television and film. In late 1959, he was working on a new story entitled "I Love Galesburg in the Springtime," which would eventually see publication in the April 1960 issue of
McCall's
magazine. As part of his research into the story's setting, he wrote a letter to the president of Knox College requesting information about Galesburg. This letter began a correspondence that would last, on and off, for almost twenty-five years, with some lengthy breaks in between. The letters to and from Finney have been preserved in the Knox College archives, and they show a side of the publicity-shy author that has been hidden from public view.

The President

Knox College

Galesburg, Illinois

November 14, 1959

Dear Sir:

I wonder if I could ask a favor of someone at Knox College; I don't know to whom I should address this.

I am a professional writer, and have just written a short story about Galesburg. I'm the author of a good many stories, which have appeared over the past ten years in
Good Housekeeping, Collier's, McCall's, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan,
etc.; and of four novels, the last of which was just recently published, by Simon & Schuster
[Assault on a Queen],
During these ten years I've written about Galesburg in my stories every once in a while.

But this newest story is entirely about Galesburg, and is full of references to the town, both contemporary and in the past. Trouble is that I haven't been in Galesburg since the late 30s, and I'm sure some of my references are inaccurate, out of date, or wrong for some other reason. This story will be published by
McCall's
magazine, and I told them when I sent it to them what I said above; that it undoubtedly is not accurate as it now stands.

McCall's
wants me to go to Galesburg, to research my factual references, and I am delighted at the chance to come to Galesburg again, and will do so as soon as I can arrange a time for my visit.

It would help me enormously, though, if someone at Knox who knows Galesburg, past and present, might be willing to read my story in advance of my visit. Is there anyone at the college, do you think, who might be willing to do this? I ask, because of course my story (I was graduated from Knox in 1934, and am listed in your records under my real but seldom-used name of Walter B. Finney), contains references to Knox which I've got to check, too.

I have written to the editor of the
Galesburg Register-Mail
, asking him if he will, to read my story, and tell me where I've gone wrong. So there would be no need for whoever at Knox might be willing to read my story to correspond with me about it. All I'd like, if that's possible, is to have someone at Knox with whom I could talk when I get to Galesburg, who has read my story in advance of my visit.

It may very well be that this is a request which cannot be met; and I will certainly understand it if this is so. Please don't hesitate to let me know if it's impossible. I've enclosed a stamped addressed envelope for your convenience in letting me know about this, if you will.

Sincerely yours,

Jack Finney

223 Ricardo Road

Mill Valley, Calif.

The letter appears to have been well-received, for a reply was written by M.M. Goodsill, director of public relations for Knox College, on November 16,1959, only two days after Finney's letter was written. He replied:

Dear Mr. Finney:

Acknowledging your letter of November 14, I'll be glad to read your story and search for errors. I used to be on
The Mail
.

I note you have written the editor of the
Register-Mail
, who is Chuck Morrow, and if he or Mac Eddy, associate editor, read the story also, I'm sure we'll catch anything that might be wrong. Or we'll know who to check with.

Kellogg McClelland at Knox is an encyclopedia of facts about the town and college also and we can refer unknown questions to him. I presume you've read Earnest Calkins' "They Broke The Prairie." We'll be glad to sec you when you come.

Sincerely,

M.M. Goodsill

Handwritten notes at the bottom of the letter add that, on November 17, 1959, the college sent Finney copies of "Places of Interest in Galesburg" and another pamphlet or book whose name is illegible, and that on November 23, 1959, they sent him something called "Galesburg's Mighty Horse Market."

Finney must have visited Knox College in early December 1959, for he wrote the following letter to Goodsill:

December 14, 1959

Dear Mr. Goodsill:

Thank you again for your great courtesy, and helpfulness, to me when I visited Galesburg early this month. It was very kind of you to take the time and trouble to show me around Knox as you did; I would never have realized or seen the many interesting changes since I was in school which you pointed out to me.

Thanks to you and to Mr. Morrow of the
Register-Mail,
I was able to get all the material I needed, quickly and easily, for the story I am working on. All in all it was a successful and enjoyable trip, and I'm very happy to have had the pleasure of meeting you.

Finney added a postscript:

I've learned, incidentally, that the story which brought me to Galesburg is tentatively scheduled to appear in the April issue of
McCall's
magazine.

Goodsill replied on December 18, 1959:

Thanks for your letter of December 14. I'll watch for
McCall's
in April.

The snapshot I inflicted on you turned out all right, so I plan to run it in
The Alumnus.
Could you find time to send me a list of books and articles from your pen? Also, biographical material up to date?

Happy holidays to you!

Subsequent letters, including the letter with the list of writing, appear to have been lost. However, handwritten notes on the December 18 letter report that "letter with list given to Helen for files 12-18" and "snapshot to Helen 3-8-60 (used in
Alumnus
winter)." Another "snap to Helen 3-22-60 used & ret'd by R. mail" followed.

The Knox Alumnus
issue of winter 1960 included a photograph of Finney under the heading, "Walter B. Finney, '34," and a brief biography. Of interest is the following paragraph:

Finney worked twelve years in advertising agencies in Chicago and New York after finishing Knox. Then moved to Mill Valley, Calif., where he now lives and writes at 223 Ricardo Road. "As my bit in furthering good-neighbor policy," he writes, "am married to a beautiful Canadian. Have daughter nine, named Marguerite after mother; son Kenneth, six, named after Secretary of Agriculture in Millard Fillmore's cabinet; dog Duke, named after English sea hero; have hamster named Harry, after Light-Horse Harry Lee; plus five guppies, unnamed. Very fond of Knox College."

Four more letters were exchanged between Goodsill and Finney in the early months of 1960. On March 22, Goodsill wrote: "The plan to circulate 5,000 extra copies of
McCall's
worked out. Just to make sure that you receive clips, I enclose two from
Register-Mail
March 21." The
Register-Mail
article essentially reprints the piece from the winter 1960
Knox Alumnus
and adds some pertinent quotations from the story, "I Love Galesburg in the Springtime."

Finney replied on March 26, 1960: