The Third Level

An extraordinary collection of daring stories...THE THIRD LEVELby Jack FinneySardonic and wry, each of these tales is uniquely plotted by a master craftsman — a man whose style can best be described as haunting.As Finney's young narrator in one of the stories explains: "I've read some of the stuff about Time with a capital T, and I don't say I understand it too well. But I know Einstein or somebody compares Time to a winding river, and says we exist as though in a boat, drifting along between high banks. All we can see is the present, immediately around us. We can't see the future just beyond the next curve, or the past in the many bends in back of us. But it's all there just the same. There — countless bends back in infinite distance — lies the past, as real as the moment around us."It is on these various co-existing bends of time that Jack Finney picks out the tune of his tales — miraculously, enchantingly and meaningfully; in each tale the fourth dimension cements the possibilities that the reader's imagination readily provides.THE THIRD LEVEL includes such stories as the unforgettable OF MISSING PERSONS with its lush pictures of the world of Verne, the compassionate SOMETHING IN A CLOUD that recalls the poignant longing of one human being for another; and the phantasmagorically funny factor determining the events in one small town in BEHIND THE NEWS. Appearing for the first time in book form, these selections were first published in the pages of Collier's, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal and Cosmopolitan.JACK FINNEY is a prodigious writer of short stories, novels and novelettes, which appear in all the major magazines and are widely reprinted in European publications. He is the author of three novels — FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE and THE BODY SNATCHERS, which have both been made into motion pictures, and a new novel, THE HOUSE OF NUMBERS. He resides in Mill Valley, California with his wife and two children; this is his first published collection of short stories.