Sam
Goldwyn once told the producers of his movies “If you want to send a message,
use Western Union.” That’s a bit of advice we’ve clung to over the years.
But
as Becoming Finnigan wound its way
through the writing, rewriting and editing process and finally became a real
live book, the identity of Joel Finnigan – and Susanna Winslow and Althea
Burnside – began emerging from hiding places we didn’t know existed.
At
first glance, Joel is a guy working his way through the various stages of his
life – his boyhood fears of the Great Depression, the hell of World War II and
the social revolutions that followed the war – and trying his damndest to make
them mean something. He was a participant and chronicler of what Henry Luce
labeled The American Century.
He
lived through all of this in hopes of regaining his first and only real love.
Gradually
it began to dawn on us that Joel stood for something else that we did not quite
grasp, even as we were opening the box of author’s copies from High Tide Publications and were finally able to
hold Becoming Finnigan in our hands.
It’s
a shame, really that Joel Finnigan left the stage on 9/10. It would have been
great fun watching him do to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck what he did to Hootie
Harlan.