Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney

by Jack Seabrook

  Not long after the publication of the serial, Simon & Schuster published Assault on a Queen, the novel version of the story. It is greatly expanded and revised from the serialized version, and the plot changes are more significant than in any other novel that Jack Finney expanded from a prior magazine version.

  The changes begin in the early chapters of the book. Hugh's relationship with Alice is shown in more detail, and their walk through Manhattan recalls similar scenes in Finney's earlier short stories featuring fim and Eve Ryan. A scene is added to the book where Hugh rebels against a traffic cop and receives a ticket; this act of civil disobedience prefigures similar acts in The Night People, a novel that has much in common with Assault on a Queen. When Hugh meets Vic in chapter two, the amount of money to be gained is also lessened — from '"a million and a half dollars'" to '"hundreds of thousands of dollars'" (36). This is important because the robbery in the book is utterly different than that of the serial.

  Bigger changes begin to emerge in chapter three of the novel, where Frank Lauffnauer's Nazi past is mentioned only in passing. The section of the serial that Finney cut made Frank a more sympathetic character by having him explain his feelings about Hitler and the Nazi party. In the book, his past is less detailed and thus more suspect.

  Even more surprising changes occur in chapter four, as Finney deletes the entire section of the plot that provided the motivation for the robbery. In Assault on a Queen, there is no trunk with money hidden inside, nor is there a Nazi war criminal named Kroll who plans to travel from Argentina to Germany to restore the Third Reich. Instead, Frank and his team have no motivation other than greed, and the story suffers as a result.

  In chapter eleven, Lincoln Langley still hails the Queen Mary by identifying the submarine as the '"H.M.S. Submarine Trident'" (137), demonstrating that Finney probably did not see the letter in The Saturday Evening Post correcting this salutation before the novel was published. Vic's incorrect salute to the captain of the Queen Mary is also unchanged from the serial. The novel veers off into uncharted waters in chapters eleven and twelve, where the robbery takes place.

  While "The U-19's Last Kill" has Frank and Hugh identify and rob the Nazi Kroll, Assault on a Queen takes a different approach. Without a person on board the ship to look for, and without a trunk full of money to find, Finney must come up with something else. Instead, Frank orders the ship's purser to unlock the passengers' safe deposit boxes, which he promptly empties into mail sacks. He then takes all of the money from the ship's bank. Whereas Hugh, in part five of the serial, tells the passengers, "'We are looking for one person only, an escaped criminal,"' in the novel he tells them, '"We want your money, nothing else'" (155).

  The passengers then file by and Hugh, Frank, and Vic collect their money. This change in the novel is its central flaw, and Finney returns to the same ethical problem he tried to confront in 5 Against the House— that of attempting to justify having a likeable character stealing from presumably innocent people for no good reason. In Assault on a Queen, Hugh wrestles with his conscience in an interior monologue as he systematically robs the ship's passengers. Regarding the money, he thinks "I felt sorry for the people who had lost it" (160) and he realizes that "we were pirates" (161). The "fear and strain" begins to wear on him, as does "the occasional look of pure contempt that looked out at me from the eyes" of those he robs (161).

  Hugh recalls Frank and Ed Moreno telling him that "these people ... were rich or close to it" and that "we'd be taking only the cash they had on them, and they could all afford that." Hugh realizes that "in robbing some of these people, I could be doing them a terrible harm." He adds that "I suddenly understood that 1 was stealing. I suddenly understood that I was a thief." Hugh concludes that "there is a difference between knowing that stealing is wrong, and actually doing it; and the difference is enormous" (163).

  Hugh reaches an understanding about what he has done, but it is too little and too late. He cannot back out; he can only escape. In changing the story and the motivations for the robbery in this way, Jack Finney removed a believable plot device and substituted an incredible one. The scenes on the Queen Mary in Assault on a Queen are forced, and Hugh's interior monologue makes him sound incredibly foolish. The Nazi subplot of "The U-19's Last Kill" may have been the stuff of pulp fiction, but it was more believable than the novel's passengers who rather docilely hand over their wealth.

  The other big change from serial to novel involves Alice Muir, who is central to the climax of "The U-19's Last Kill" but who is absent from the concluding chapters of Assault on a Queen. In the novel, Hugh never sees her on board the ship, nor is she taken hostage and brought on the submarine. While it may be a coincidence in the serial, it gives a welcome closure to the relationship that was developed at the start of the story. The novel suffers because of the change.

  In the novel, Hugh simply pushes the boat launch away from the sub, leaving it with sacks full of money to drift at sea. As readers, we are supposed to see this as the result of Hugh's ethical dilemma about robbing the ship's passengers, but again it seems forced and unbelievable. The oversized trunk of the serial is more satisfying.

  The novel ends with Hugh walking off alone, intending to continue a courtship with fellow thief Rosa that had been developed in the course of the book. Alice Muir is forgotten, to the book's detriment. Unfortunately, Assault on a Queen is an example of a novel that was expanded from a serial less than successfully. Perhaps Jack Finney thought that the Nazi subplot was too far-fetched; whatever the reason for the changes he made, they do not result in a better story.

  Regardless of its merits, Assault on a Queen appears to have been a very successful novel. After two paperback originals in a row (The Body Snatchers and The House of Numbers), this novel was published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster. A book club edition followed, and the story was adapted for the movie screen in 1966. The film, which starred Frank Sinatra, is examined in detail in chapter nineteen.

  At the time of its publication, Assault on a Queen was widely reviewed, unlike Finney's prior novels. The Kirkus Service wrote that "the magnitude of the plot's conception is in no way supported by the scope of Jack Finney's imagination. And so despite infinite detail on the technical problems involved in such a venture, the assault seems to be on the reader's credulousness." Bennett Epstein, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, disagreed, remarking on the novel's "ingenious and utterly fantastic plot" and called it "an engrossing story from the prologue to the last page."

  A reviewer in The New Yorker agreed that "the plot is fine" (192) but complained that "its execution, in the literary sense, is something less than dexterous, and, in the physical sense, is deplorable, because the men have nothing of the brigand about them, and nothing of the pirate." He points out that the characters "move in torpor, rancor, and apprehension, and end up about as they began" (193). Sergeant Cuff, however, wrote in the Saturday Review that the novel was a "beautifully detailed yarn."

  Since its initial publication, Assault on a Queen has received little critical attention. Both Michael Beard and J. Sydney Jones noticed that the thieves in this caper novel are an older group than those in 5 Against the House, and Stephen King described Rod Serling's script for the film adaptation of the novel as "a work which can most humanely be characterized as unfortunate" (237). More recently, Jon Breen pointed out that, in this book, "Once again, Finney's amateur criminals try to show they aren't really evil people by offering justification for an almost victimless crime" (30), and Fred Blosser praised Finney's "talent for exploring an arcanc subject in fascinating detail" (52).

  Finney would not write another crime novel until The Night People, which he published in 1977. In the meantime, he would write the last of his short stories, pen several novels that blended comedy, fantasy, and time travel, and even write a play that would close before it got to Broadway. With Assault on a Queen, the early part of Jack Finney's career as a novelist came to an end.

  EIGHT

 
Later Short Fiction and a Play (1958-1966)

  After publishing The Third Level in 1957, Jack Finney continued to write and publish short stories in popular magazines, albeit at a slower clip than he had been doing in the early part of the 1950s. From June 1958, when "Vive La Differénce!" appeared in Good Housekeeping, through April 1965, when "Double Take" appeared in Playboy, Finney published a total of 17 short stories, some of which were collected in 1963's I Love Galesburg in the Springtime. "Double Take" was to be the last short story he ever published and, after the play This Winter's Hobby was performed in 1966, he would confine his fiction to novels for the final 29 years of his life and career.

  "Vive La Differénce" is another of the light, domestic comedies that Finney had specialized in with such characters as Tim and Eve Ryan and Ben and Ruth Callandar. This time, Hank and Hilda Jessup argue about a dream Hilda has had; she is mad at Hank for his behavior in the dream and the confusion escalates to a humorous conclusion.

  This rather forgettable story was followed by a much better one, "Seven Days to Live." This tale, which was later reprinted as "Prison Legend," returns to the prison setting of The House of Numbers and again features a sympathetic warden. As the story begins, he reads requests from condemned men and comes across one from Mexican Luis Perez, who asks for paint supplies. Perez is set to die in seven days and wants to paint a mural on the wall of his cell. The warden approves the request, the paint is delivered, and Perez begins to paint.

  Suspense builds as Finney's third-person narrator describes the painting. A pattern of boards begins to form, and onlookers realize that Perez is painting a door. Word spreads fast through the prison and the warden visits the cell; the door is amazing in its detail and looks real. The warden, fighting the impulse to have the paint removed, allows the project to continue, even as Perez puts up a blanket and paints behind it on the day before his execution.

  Behind the makeshift curtain, the warden sees that Perez has painted a likeness of the door to his home in Mexico, and the warden can see into the house through the painted cracks and knotholes in the door. On the morning of the execution, the warden comes for Perez, who emerges with the words, '"It is finished "' (62), echoing the words of Jesus at the crucifixion. As he leaves the cell, the creaking of old door hinges is heard. Just before Perez is killed, the governor calls with a stay, explaining that another man has confessed to the murder for which Perez had been convicted.

  Back in his cell, Perez shows the warden the completed painting. The door now stands open, and in it is Perez's wife, "her face contorted in an agony of joy, and she was running toward the open doorway, her arms outflung, as though it had just opened, and someone she loved were stepping through it" (62). Perez tells the warden that this is what he will soon see; the story ends with the warden wondering how Perez had made the impossible come true.

  "Seven Days to Live" is a moving story, where a prisoner succeeds in cheating death by means of an inexplicable talent. Finney tells a fantastic tale in a realistic setting where, as Stephen King wrote, he can "create the fantasy ... and then not apologize for it or explain it" (236). The reader is simply grateful that the impossible occurred and the tale is well told.

  "Bedtime Story" is yet another light comedy about a young, urban couple. Mike and Iris Cutler are much like the Ryans or the Calendars; they spend the story playing practical jokes on each other in the middle of the night and it ends with them about to take the first step toward having a baby.

  One of the main characters in Finney's next story, "All My Clients Are Innocent," is engaged, but his business partner tries desperately to prevent him from getting married and following the path of so many of Finney's other young characters. In this entertaining story, Al Michaels is a lawyer in his mid-twenties who works with famous attorney Max Wollheim. The story's title refers to Max's oft-repeated claim, which he explains refers to the fact that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

  Mr. Balderson, accused of robbing seven shops, hires Max and Al. He has fired his lawyer and wants Max to defend him at his trial, which is scheduled to start the next day. Unfortunately for Al, he is supposed to get married tonight, but that does not stop Max from pulling out all the stops to convince him and his fiancee to postpone the wedding so that Al can prepare the case.

  The trial goes well for the defense the next day and Max wins the case. Balderson confesses after the verdict that he really was guilty, and Al's fiancée is furious that she gave up her wedding to help him defend a guilty man. She storms off, leaving Max and Al to celebrate their victory and Al's baptism of fire as a lawyer.

  "All My Clients Are Innocent" is funny and a good read, but Jack Finney never returned to these characters again. The story was adapted for television in 1962, as discussed in chapter eighteen.

  Finney's next story was one of his best time travel tales, "The Love Letter." In it, Jake Belknap, a 24-year-old bachelor, tells the reader, "I live in Brooklyn to save money and work in Manhattan to make it" (16). He recently bought a desk at a second-hand store; the desk had come from "one of the last of the big old mid-Victorian houses in Brooklyn; they were tearing it down..." (16).

  Jake is dating Roberta Haig but does not really care if he sees her again. Alone in his apartment he explores the old desk, and Finney describes its nooks and crannies in loving detail. In a drawer, Jake finds an envelope, and in the envelope a letter dated May 14, 1882. The letter is written in the style of the 1880s and is signed by Helen Elizabeth Worley of Brooklyn, who expresses her love for her sweetheart, the intended recipient. Jake decides to write an answer, and thinks: "I am trying to explain why I answered that letter. There in the silence of a timeless spring night it seemed natural enough..." (48). The important word here is "timeless," for in writing this letter Jake takes the first step in a romance for which time is no barrier.

  Using an 1869 stamp he finds in his childhood stamp collection, Jake prepares the letter for delivery and walks to the house from whence the desk had come. He copies down the address and mails the letter at a post office that had been built soon after the Civil War. Like Si Mor-ley in Time and Again, Jake Belknap carefully recreates the past in order to transcend time and mail his letter.

  The next week, Jake finds himself in the New York Public Library perusing a "big one-volume pictorial history of New York" and sees a photograph of "a street less than a quarter mile from Brock Place... I knew that Helen Worley must often have walked along this very sidewalk." He thinks of Varney Street as he knows it and compares it to Varney Street as pictured in 1881; today, it is "a non-descript joyless street, and it's impossible to believe that there has ever been a tree on its entire length." Jake looks at the picture and thinks about how people in 1881 had time, time "to build huge wide porches on which families sat on summer evenings with palm-leaf fans" (52).

  Jake Belknap yearns for a simpler time, as characters in many of Jack Finney's best stories often do, from Tim Ryan in "Manhattan Idyl" to Si Morley in From Time to Time. He thinks

  Maybe I live in what is for me the wrong lime, and I was filled now with the most desperate yearning to be there, on that peaceful street —to walk off, past the edges of the scene on the printed page before me, into the old and beautiful Brooklyn of long ago (52).

  "The Love Letter" is a clear precursor to Time and Again, but in this short story the narrator never succeeds in traveling back to the 1880s. Instead, he finds in the old desk a second letter from Helen Worley, replying to his own and full of desire to meet him. Much like the narrator in "Second Chance," Jake thinks, "late at night ... the boundary between here and then wavers" (52). He writes back to Helen, explaining that it is 1959 and, although they can never meet, he has fallen in love with her.

  She replies a week later with a photograph of herself. Across the bottom is written the message, "'I will never forget'" (54). Jake knows she will not be able to write to him again, since he has used up all of the drawers in the desk. The story ends as Jake locates Helen's grave, with her messag
e to him engraved on the headstone.

  "The Love Letter" is a brilliant story that stands with Finney's best short work. Writing in 1996, Kim Newman called it one of Finney's "perfect short stories" (197), along with "The Third Level" and "Second Chance." The story was adapted for a television movie that aired on February 1, 1998; the tale is greatly expanded and updated, but Finney's themes remain at its core. The movie is well worth watching and garnered good reviews (Steven W. Schuldt called it a "near-classic"), and it is discussed in detail in chapter eighteen.

  Jack Finney followed "The Love Letter" with the six-part serial, "The U-19's Last Kill," which began three weeks later in the same magazine (see chapter seven). His final short story to be published in the 1950s was "Take One Rainy Night...," which marked the fourth and last appearance of Ben and Ruth Callander (again with an "e"), who had previously appeared in Good Housekeeping in 1955 and 1957. This time, the Callanders and their friends the Howsers play pranks on each other involving a trip to the movies on a night of bad weather.

  "The Other Wife" followed in the January 30, 1960 issue of The Saturday Evening Post; this story was the basis for the novel, The Woodrow Wilson Dime, and will be discussed in chapter ten.

  The first of Jack Finney's last ten short stories to be published was "Crazy Sunday." Told in the third person by an unnamed narrator, it features another young New Yorker, Victor Talburt. Talburt is married with a young son; he enjoys his first moments of freedom in years as his wife and child leave for the weekend to visit her mother. On a whim, he takes an overnight flight to Paris, where he roams the city and recalls his time there in the Army. He sees his former girlfriend, Suzanne, but does not approach her, realizing that they have both grown in the five years since they have last seen each other. In a surprising twist for a Jack Finney character, Talburt understands "that his youth wasn't still here waiting to be returned to" (246). He returns home to New York and his family, having bought the French bread his wife had requested.