Finegan is a scion of the infamous Marsh family, a line with a sordid and mysterious history stretching back to its ancestral roots in Innsmouth, Massachussetts. Finegan is nothing short of trouble on two legs, and supremely arrogant to boot. According to him, he is surrounded by a sea of morons who couldn’t understand him if they tried, and their hatred of him is a result of envy and stupidity.  He has since figured out that he gets his kicks from shaking people’s cages, from performing little socio-psychological experiments on people around him and being entertained by the results. Fancying himself quite the “beautiful mind”, Finegan reads voraciously, but not out of any real interest in the pursuit of knowledge.  He reads books that reassure his view of himself-- Nietzsche is his favorite author of all time, with Machiavelli a close second. 

Finegan lacks follow-through; a talker, not a walker. Jake is great with follow-through but has no motivation. Thus, over the years, Finegan’s relationship with Jake has devolved from fellowship to parasitism, though he refuses to acknowledge it as such.   He’s become such an expert at winding up Jake that he does it almost by reflex. He could do things for himself, but he gets more kicks by manipulating Jake into doing them for him.  Finegan has discovered he has the ability to talk Jake into doing just about anything-- which more often than not results in bigger and more elaborate pranks. Finegan is jealous of his friend Jake’s relationships with other people—especially when it comes to Shelley Oneto, Jake's semi-girlfriend.

Finegan is also deeply unstable. Shortly after his high school graduation, Finegan’s father drowned his mother then committed suicide.  This among other things led to Finegan’s nervous breakdown and subsequent committal to a psychiatric hospital—a secret he has shared only with Jake.

Despite his jaundiced view of Garterville and its residents, Finegan finds himself drawn to the town.  Every summer he returns home from college for reasons he himself cannot define and this is beginning to bother him.  Something deep in him suspects the truth: he defines himself by his self-inflicted ostracism, and without oppression he has to face the fact that there is something truly wrong with him.  These feelings, along with the house he inherited, are what keeps him returning to Garterville year after year.

Appearance
Finegan is in his mid-twenties, short & lanky, with unhealthy-looking sallow skin, and dark, greasy hair that hangs in his face.  It's not that he has bad posture, but he just looks like he's been put together wrong; his arms seem just a bit too long and his joints a bit too large.  His nose is long and narrow; his mouth is wide and tends to turn down at the corners and his eyes are dark, liquid and overlarge.  He seems incapable of growing facial hair.  He radiates an air of stagnation and vague menace..

When not in his work uniform, Finegan wears a strange mixture of goth-esque fashion and 50's lesiure style: harness boots, Hawaiian shirts, white bellbottoms with sharp creases and a burgundy smoking vest.  He also affects a pipe.  His style represents a fashion disaster of near-Beeblebroxian proportions.