Jon Clinch is an American novelist. Originally from

Oneida Oneida may refer to: Native American/First Nations * Oneida people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy * Oneida language * Oneida Indian Nation, based in New York * Oneida N ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, he graduated from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

and went on to teach American literature. Formerly creative director for various advertising agencies in the

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

area, he now lives in Vermont. He has written stories which have been published in '' MSS'' magazine.

Works

In February 2007

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

published his

first novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, ''Finn'', a critically acclaimed

backstory A backstory, background story, background, or legend is a set of events invented for a plot, preceding and leading up to that plot. In acting, it is the history of the character before the drama begins, and is created during the actor's prepara ...

about "Pap Finn",

Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...

's father from

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

's ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, th ...

'' (1884). Named an

American Library Association Notable Book American Library Association Notable lists are announced each year in January by various divisions within the American Library Association (ALA). There are six lists which are part of the larger ALA awards structure. * ''ALA Notable Books for Adu ...

, ''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 The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c) organization, 501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the N ...

'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 ''O, The Oprah Magazine'', also known simply as ''O'', is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications. In 2021, Winfrey and Hearst rebranded it as ''Oprah Daily''. Overview It was first pu ...

''. ''Marley,'' his reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens's ''

A Christmas Carol ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the ...

,'' 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, linchhas, 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." In 2023, Clinch published ''The General and Julia''.

References

External links

*''Finn: A Novel'' (2007).

.
''Finn''
book website.
''JonClinch.com''
author website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clinch, Jon Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American novelists Syracuse University alumni American male novelists 21st-century American male writers People from Oneida, New York Novelists from New York (state)