Characters in Finn

Show me a trick.” His sisters, Colleen and Marie, were on them, climbing and swinging like... well, like monkeys. So, to please Grandma, he went on the monkeybars and slipped while hanging upside down and fell and broke his arm.

It was Deirdre Hanlon from across the street (one of the partygoers on that long-ago Pogues day, although not the cherry bomb thrower) who saw him and fished the unconscious boy out of the gutter. “I thought poor old Finn was dead for sure,” she said.

I mean no. I’m Finn Murrie. Finn.” “Doc.” The white-haired man—Mr. Ludlum—nodded to the one with the droopy eye. “Help this fine young man to remember his name.” Doc stepped forward. Pando, aka Mr. Weasel, grabbed Finn by the shoulders.

Ellie had made him some scrambled eggs before the necking started, but Finn had an idea that was long since digested. If digestion continued when you were unconscious, that was. He thought it must. A person’s body just went about its business.

“My name is Finn Murrie. That’s Murrie with an ie at the end, not ay.” He felt that this detail alone should be enough to convince the white-haired man. It was so specific. “Is it now?” the white-haired man said. “Will wonders never cease!” “I’ll tell you what happened.

His sisters, Colleen and Marie, were on them, climbing and swinging like... well, like monkeys. So, to please Grandma, he went on the monkeybars and slipped while hanging upside down and fell and broke his arm.

… beside Doc to the kitchen, where the oldish man—Marm—was using tongs to put what looked like a perfectly fried sausage on a plate that already held two eggs (fried hard, just the way Finn liked them), four strips of bacon, mushrooms still sizzling in butter, and a slice of tomato.

His teacher that year, pretty Miss Monahan, liked to end each day by saying, What have we learned today, kiddos?

In his last year of school, Mr. Edgerton assigned them a story by Ambrose Bierce. After they had all read it (presumably; not all of Finn’s classmates were of the reading class), Mr. Edgerton showed them a short film based on the story, which was about the hanging of a …

“Sir—” “Call me Mr. Ludlum, if you like. I used to call myself Mr. Deighton, but I got tired of it.” “Mr. Ludlum, I’m not Bobby Feeney and I didn’t have any briefcase. I never did.

Doc stepped forward. Pando, aka Mr. Weasel, grabbed Finn by the shoulders. Doc removed a heavy ring, put it in the pocket of his chinos, and slapped Finn across the face, good and hard. Then he went the other way, even harder. Spit flew from the side of Finn’s mouth.

At fourteen, running home from his friend Patrick’s house in a driving thunderstorm, a stroke of lightning hit the street directly behind him, close enough to frizz his hair and char a line down the back of his jacket.

My father’s name was Stephen and people were always for spelling it with a v or even an f, like Stefan.” The white-haired man slipped the Odeon card back into his folder. “Did you enjoy the music we had piped into your room?” “I know why you do that.