Jack Finney Time and Again Torrent
As Time GOES Past; Jack Finney
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March nineteen, 1995
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Render WITH US NOW TO A bygone era. To a charming little dry out cleaner in Sausalito, Calif. The year? "I haven't any goddamned idea," Jack Finney says. "Possibly it's 1952; peradventure it's 1953. Who cares?" He does think this: He isn't famous. Not notwithstanding. He'due south sold a few stories to big magazines. Only "Trunk Snatchers," a novel that will become a flick, is a few years away. "Time and Again," Finney's beloved fourth dimension-travel tale, is 18 years downward the road. On the street, nobody knows him.
Today, he wants merely his trousers.
Traditionally, his wife handles this. Marg drops by the cleaner with their daughter, who is perhaps a year old. The owner loves the daughter. Gives her processed, pats her head. Just this time, Finney's lone -- at the counter, ticket in manus. Owner looks at the ticket, looks at Finney. Says: "Are you Jack Finney? The Jack Finney?" Finney adjusts his shoulders, thinking, "Finally, a fan." Owner rushes toward him, hand outstretched. Says: "Mr. Finney, I've been wanting to come across you for the longest time. Only to tell you lot . . . y'all have the loveliest daughter."
Remembering this, Finney laughs. He laughs so hard he begins to cough violently. He grabs his asthma inhalator and a silver stopwatch. (The first time you see this, information technology'southward a tad frightening.) After 60 seconds, he rebounds. He apologizes, frowns briefly and says: "The guy hadn't read a discussion. Not a darned give-and-take. That's the story of my life. Let me tell you. . . ."
Then information technology begins. We'll move through time -- the Jack Finney manner. The "Time and Again" way. Fantastic events will surroundings us. We'll hear all sorts of people -- some of them famous -- saying fabulous things. Merely we must keep to ourselves. The slightest interaction and nosotros could change history. We could launch a chain of events. Nosotros could somehow keep Finney from finishing the sequel to "Time and Again." It is called "From Time to Time" and has been desperately awaited. For years, Finney would start it -- and toss the pages into the garage. He would say, "Why should I write this goddamned thing?" Simply the ministrations of his friends and family unit -- and his amanuensis, Don Congdon, who finally said, "Jesus, Jack, don't yous wanna leave something for your kids?" -- pulled him through. Past Feb. 1, 100,000 copies were in bookstores, and a few days later information technology landed on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list; it briefly trickled onto The New York Times's list. The reviews, for the most role, have been kind. And Finney'due south fans (they are highly excitable) are besieging him with mail. They share their innermost thoughts and desires. But that is non your concern. Please remain seated and refrain from flash photography.
We are guests.
So . . . welcome to Sun, Aug. 9, 1970. Frances Farmer died last week. Joe Lapchick, the great basketball game player and coach, will dice tomorrow. In San Francisco today, The Chronicle has printed a tiny profile of a shy and retiring novelist. His proper name is Jack Finney. He is of mild interest, if simply because he lives beyond the Gilded Gate Bridge in the boondocks of Factory Valley. (Information technology is beside Sausalito.) He has been writing for 25 years. Collier's, Good Housekeeping, Playboy and The Saturday Evening Post have printed his fiction. He has never been interviewed before. He is, the commodity says, 58. (He will never again tell a reporter his age.) He has a lovely wife, Marg (hard G, brusk for Marguerite). They met in Reno, while divorcing previous spouses. They have a girl, Margie, 19, and a son, Kenneth, 16. Finney gets a kick out of their wacky teen-age ideas. He has fed and clothed them solely with income from writing.
Last month, Simon & Schuster published, to no one's corking attention, a novel chosen "Fourth dimension and Again." It received generally favorable notices, though Martha Duffy, writing in Time, said Finney's characters are "solid pine and the plot is upholstered with historical minutiae that quickly become tedious."
The volume, which is ready in New York City, alternates between 1970 and 1882. Information technology is the tale of an all-effectually great guy, Simon Morley. A sketch creative person who works in an ad agency, he is deployed past the Government to spy on the past. Using hypnosis, menstruation garb and a seventh-floor apartment in the Dakota, he wills himself dorsum to Jan. 23, 1882.
Simon, 28, learns much. He explodes previously held notions of metaphysics. But his greatest discovery, among the gas lamps and hansom cabs, is that when two lovers woo, they still say "I dear you." He falls for an earnest woman of the fourth dimension, ditching his 1970 girlfriend and a promising career in espionage. He returns to '82 -- forever. Or so he and Finney believe. Only in the crazy, mixed-up worlds of time travel and book publishing, "forever" doesn't mean much.
Back here, in 1970, Finney can't know the adoration that awaits him. He simply can't know that Simon volition develop a "cult" (though the term will agitate Finney, who reserves it for Charles Manson). Nor tin can he know that over the side by side 25 years the volume volition never go out of print. It will sell 250,000 copies. In 1987, it volition even spawn a restaurant -- called, aye, Time and Once again -- in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan.
But nosotros digress. This is nonetheless Sunday, Aug. 9, 1970. And The Chronicle has slapped viii words over Finney'southward balding caput: "Pop Author -- but Nobody's Ever Heard of Him." The reporter, 1 Genevieve Stuttaford, has written:
"Mention 'Good Neighbour Sam' and automatically people remember a funny Jack Lemmon film. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'? Science fiction film buffs will say information technology was a classic. 5 of Finney'due south seven novels accept been turned into films. . . . Merely bring up . . . the proper noun of the man who wrote them and there'southward a complete blank."
A few words later, over a 1970 ginger ale, Finney tells Stuttaford why. He hates publicity; he'd prefer his work to speak for itself. Besides, he adds, authors always seem to say the same things in interviews. "I don't find it interesting unless at that place is some useful, practical communication given."
He gives none. Nor does he play upwardly "Trunk Snatchers" or how he came to be obsessed with pod people. "It was just an idea," he says with a shrug. The novel'south quite expert -- not schlocky at all. In 1970, it is having its 15th birthday. Viii years from now, when the film is remade with Donald Sutherland (Finney had nada to practise with any of the screenplays), he volition "revise and update" the book. He volition remove what he calls anachronisms -- like cigarette smoking. (Curiously, he'll retain the wives who rise early, don aprons and scramble their husbands' eggs.) He will pencil in real-life Mill Valley, which in previous editions had been disguised as "Santa Mira." The movie volition be re-remade in 1994 by the naughty impresario Abel Ferrara, just Finney won't enjoy it. Its lousiness will pain him doubly. In 1955, for the lump sum of $7,500, he sold abroad the film rights. Forever. (On film contracts, "forever" has a highly specific meaning.) The novel, withal, will remain in print. Right through 1995.
But as "Time and Again" insists, we travelers cannot alter history. We cannot promote Jack Finney -- at least not in 1970. Nosotros cannot march down Throckmorton Street in Mill Valley, forth which much of "Body Snatchers" transpires, and assure the townspeople that their streets could become a literary destination. That a cardiganed visionary walks among them.
Onward, and so, to . . . Sunday, Feb. 13, 1994. This week, in London, Patti LuPone will learn she won't be playing Norma Desmond on Broadway; in Lillehammer, Nancy and Tonya will take to the water ice, and in Washington, The Mail service has printed a sizable profile of Jack Finney. His third or fourth interview. For the photograph, he holds a cup of java in his lap and manages to smile. He has reason. Jack Viertel, the Broadway showman who had his way with another sacred text, "The Clandestine Garden," is adapting "Fourth dimension and Once again." He and diverse partners plan a production for fall 1996. Universal has secured the film rights; Robert Redford will direct and perchance star in 1997. Finney'south girl is happily working with computers for a large-bargain corporation. His son, now an attorney, has been an aide to Jerry Chocolate-brown; his babe granddaughter has had her picture taken with President Clinton. Only over Jack Finney's caput, The Post has slapped 25 words: "The Invisible Man -- His Book About Pod People Spawned Three Movies and a One thousand Theories, but Nobody Knows Jack Finney'southward Name -- Even in His Hometown."
How could this be? The author, i David Streitfeld, scours Manufactory Valley. In the town square, he visits the bookstore. He asks the cashier for a copy of "Body Snatchers." The shop has none. Nobody knows that it was set in Mill Valley. Worse, no 1'south heard of Finney. Streitfeld concludes: "Poor Jack Finney, just some other prophet without honor."
Finally: Jan. 23, 1995. Rose Kennedy died yesterday; the O. J. Simpson trial begins tomorrow. Information technology is the 113th anniversary of Simon Morley's first brush with the past. Just that bookstore notwithstanding hasn't honored Jack Finney. His photograph is not amidst those of some twenty Marin County authors hung throughout the shop -- including Evan Connell, Ethan Canin and Martin Cruz Smith.
Not that Finney has tried very difficult. Since 1970, he has fabricated precisely two public appearances. "Years agone," he says, "some woman at U. C. Berkeley asked me to announced on a discussion panel. A short-story panel. I said: 'No, I don't think so. I don't know what I'd say.' Simply she was persuasive. She said: 'Oh, everyone thinks that, but you always know what to say. I've invited people who didn't know what they'd say until the very day of the panel. But suddenly, they did.' And I believed all this. So the twenty-four hour period comes. And I recollect being at home thinking: Gee, I yet don't accept anything to say. But I volition! The nice lady said I would. And then then I'thousand up on the stage. It was a big auditorium -- where was it, Marg?"
"I don't retrieve," Marg says. "I cached my head."
"Well anyway, this woman spoke first and she was a real pro. And every bit she talked, I thought, like an idiot: Well, I still don't have anything to say. But I will! So, at the microphone, nothing happened. I stuttered and stumbled. I hadn't a damn thing to say!"
Marg looks downwardly.
Finney adds, "I said, 'Never over again.' "
For Marg, he fabricated an exception. "He spoke to our goddaughter'south class," she says. "A grade school."
Finney explains, "I tin can speak at that level."
He hasn't fifty-fifty read to the Mill Valley Public Library. That's not as well surprising, when you consider that in "Dark People," his 1977 novel, he explained how the boilerplate citizen could burglarize the place. "I was concerned," says Thelma Percy, 75, who was the head librarian then. "The instructions were explicit. We didn't want to encourage that sort of matter."
Zippo happened.
"I remember Thelma," Finney says. "She took her responsibilities very seriously."
He is sitting in his favorite living-room chair. It has been his only living room for almost twoscore years. Like everything else in the boxish ranch house, it is modest, tasteful. Doilies. Hardwood floors. Civil State of war arcana.
"Nosotros've been very conservative with our money," Marg reports. "We've invested information technology; we've never lived lavishly. We never acted like we were entitled." (Finney will not particular his finances but hints that they will e'er be "comfortable.")
Finney, who must now exist either 82 or 83, has written most of his books in an austere room at the back of the house. For the "Time" novels, he spent months spooling through microfilm of onetime New York newspapers; he was assisted by researchers at various New York museums. (He did live in New York in the 40's -- when, similar Simon, he worked in advertizement agencies.) Near Finney's desk hangs an autographed photograph of Mark Twain, his hero. In that location is also, taped to a shelf, a perpetual calendar.
Even at abode, Finney keeps his piece of work under wraps. In their 45 years of matrimony, he has never discussed a project with Marg. She often doesn't know the plot -- or the premise -- until she sees the final manuscript.
"I'm actually dying to tell her," Finney says. "It's merely that I heard one time that when y'all tell a story once, you lot've told it. I effort to save it up." Marg says: "I think information technology's a reasonable request. I always honor a reasonable request."
And then Marg, like the remainder of us, had to look for the new book. In it, Simon returns to the nowadays from the late 1800's. Then the Feds send him to 1912. This fourth dimension, he is ordered to change the past -- to (a) prevent Earth War II and, time permitting, to (b) keep the Titanic from sailing.
Today, Finney has received the sequel's first fan letter. Finney says: "The guy went to the trouble of writing out a section saying how he would have done it. Allow me encounter here -- 'Though I enjoyed the book very much, I began wondering about one thing.' " Namely, the delicious complications that would result from the 1890 Simon confronting his older, actual 1912 cocky. Imagine.
Finney stops, and smiles. "Well, it was very nice of him to write in, and I'll reply. But he's gotten off to a rails that I didn't explore. There can't exist 2 Simons at once. Information technology's cool. It's like proverb you lot could exist in Philadelphia and San Francisco at the aforementioned fourth dimension."
Finney refolds the letter and slides it back into the envelope. Everyone, it seems, is a time-travel expert. From a rack by his chair, he produces the February issue of Vanity Fair. He doesn't know the man on the comprehend, the ane with the vinyl pants. (It is Brad Pitt.) He turns instead to his ain picture. He is wearing his usual color-coordinated vest-cardigan ensemble. The photograph accompanies a sour essay-review by Luc Sante, who calls Finney's time-travel methodology -- and, indeed, "From Time to Time" -- "profoundly neurotic." This irks Finney.
"He attacks me for glamorizing the past," Finney says, "but I go to great pains to show that there was nifty sadness and poverty in the 1880's. And I wish people would stop bold I desire to alive in the past. I don't! It would be a lousy identify to live. I mean, I visited Phoenix one time, and information technology was pleasant. But I wouldn't want to live there."
Arrayed in his chair, Finney looks down at his feet. Each is covered with something bright blue, something with the properties of both a slipper and a sock. When he stands -- and walks his gingerly walk -- these give him the air of an impish professor. He is very, very sparse. He keeps indoors.
"I've ever been sparse -- and cold," he says. "When I was 2, my father died and my female parent and I went from Milwaukee, where I was born, to alive with my grandparents in Chicago, and I can e'er remember being common cold there."
He pauses for effect, equally if he'due south said this earlier.
"I have a little problem with rest," he adds. "Naught as well serious. I become all my practice in hither, walking around the room -- I have a little routine. Equally for my 24-hour interval, I get up and read the newspapers from encompass to comprehend. Then I relax and read whatsoever."
He and Marg, whose rapport suggests cabaret patter, have a number of friends in boondocks. Finney works them into his stories -- without changing their names. Few are writers. Writing, he believes, must remain a solitary pursuit. Finney drives, but only during the day. In the evenings, he and Marg travel by taxi. They have a favorite restaurant in Manufacturing plant Valley, Piazza D'Angelo, and one time every ten days or so they make their way over. Invariably their driver is Cecil Boyd, 55. Boyd has been driving a cab for 15 years. When he was a teen-ager, he made deliveries for the local chemist's. To this same address, he would drop off Finney's prescriptions -- in, say, 1958.
"I call up walking upwards this driveway and walking right by his office," Boyd says. "He'd always exist hard at work. You could see through the window. His head would be downward, at the desk. I remember he told me when Playboy had bought one of his stories. I thought that was so exciting. Simply he ever kept to himself. Quiet."
Finney doesn't remember immature Cecil. "But I do remember him reminding us every time nosotros arrive the car," he says.
Is Finney happy with "From Fourth dimension to Fourth dimension"?
"Aye," he says. "I guess so. Most of it, I think." DON CONGDON, FINNEY'S AGENT for forty years, is more than than happy. "Jack'due south an agent's dream," Congdon says. "He doesn't carp for an accelerate based on a few hundred words. He always presents a finished manuscript." Congdon has overseen the scramble for the "Time and Once again" stage and screen rights. He has even heard the songs from the impending Broadway musical, which volition be directed past Jack O'Brien ("Damn Yankees," "Hapgood"), with music and lyrics by Walter Edgar Kennon and book by Jack Viertel.
Using his hands, Viertel illustrates the challenges of the adaptation. "As we see it," Viertel says, "the book has ii elements: the mystery element and the romance chemical element. In the book, the mystery element is . . . here."
He raises a fist.
"And the romance chemical element is . . . here."
Another fist, slightly lower.
"What nosotros're doing is realigning them, then the romance chemical element is . . . here. And the mystery element is . . . here. We desire to make Simon less passive, more than compelling. And we desire to update the 'present' in 'Time and Over again.' Think, in the volume the nowadays is 1970. "
He specifies. "Simon will still work for an advertising house, but his task will involve graphic design. And we're making Kate" -- his modernistic girlfriend -- "a career woman, a decorator."
When Rachel Pfeffer, who is producing the film of "Fourth dimension and Once more" with Robert Redford, hears all this, she says: "Oh, my God."
Pfeffer is afraid to reveal any of the changes she, Redford and the screenwriter, Richard Friedenberg ("A River Runs Through It"), may make. "This book is so popular," Pfeffer says. "And I don't want people writing u.s.a. before nosotros even get started." But Redford, 57, says: "If I decide to play Si, we will definitely modify his age. Cosmetics can't accept me that far."
When Finney hears this, he merely smiles and says, "That's nice." As for the sequel, he would rather information technology speak for itself. "I was telling Marg this the other 24-hour interval: I'thou just thoroughly ill of this new book. I want it to get off by itself and do whatsoever it'southward going to do. And permit me solitary."
He has moved on -- to another project. Maybe. "There'southward something that is in my listen occasionally and I think most it a trivial bit."
"Yep," Marg tells him. "You take that look about you. I know that await. When you lot stare off into space."
"Practise I?" Finney asks, mischievously.
"Yes, you do. What's it well-nigh?"
"Never listen."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/19/magazine/as-time-goes-by-jack-finney.html