Finch’s Fortune is the ninth of Mazo de la Roche’s 16-volume series about the Canadian Whiteoak family on the farm called Jalna.
Finch’s Fortune opens on Finch Whiteoak’s 21’s birthday, reluctantly celebrated by his relatives who thought Gran should have given her $100,000 to them.
Finch buys one brother a car and piggery, assumes his sister’s mortgage, and takes his two elderly uncles off to visit their sister in England, frittering away money as he goes.
After his uncles go home, Finch stays in England doing nothing in particular, but doing it, for him, remarkably well. Finch falls in love with a cousin who marries his best friend. Finch accompanies them on their honeymoon.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, Finch’s sister-in-law, Alayne, has gone to stay with an aunt. Her husband, Renny, is busy with his horses and dogs and doesn’t seem to notice her absence.
Both Alayne and Finch return home.
The homecoming is marred by Renny stomping off in a snit after yelling about Finch wasting the money his grandmother left him.
Renny is found later in his grandmother’s bed whimpering, “No one has ever understood me but Gran.” The family accepts this as proof the mantle of family leadership has fallen to Renny.
The novel ends as Finch’s nephew is born on Finch’s birthday and named for him.
Unfortunately, Mazo de la Roche’s novel is as ridiculous as the summary makes it sound.
If you are smart, you’ll find something else to read.
Finch’s FortuneBy Mazo de la Roche
Little, Brown 1931
443 pages
1931 bestseller #9
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