The Politics of Being Dead: Local author launches book

Miriam Ostermann
Times Associate Editor

 

It was the two minutes waiting for his part to finish, the quiet hour he had for lunch, the comfort of his bed, and the buzzing of the local coffee shop that presented Jim Higgins with a window of opportunity to jot down a sentence or a chapter to his novel, The Politics of Being Dead – a decade-long project that was recently put to rest.
Higgins began writing and researching his book over 10 years ago at the young age of 20. As a teenager, his writing skills were focused on lyrics, but it wasn’t until he followed his dad’s footsteps of becoming a tradesman that he embarked on writing his first novel; a book whose premise had been on his mind for some time.
Then, several weeks ago, the Strathmore-based author finally clutched the hard copy of his magnum opus for the first time.
“I’ve always wanted to write a book, since I was a kid,” Higgins said.
“I had numerous attempts at writing something here or there, but never finished anything when I was younger. I was working at a machine shop, and I don’t remember what gave me the inspiration, but somehow I kind of came up with these ideas.”
The 32-year-old father of two originally created the main character, Jack Harnette, to reflect the ideal version of himself. Referring to his younger self as shy and anti-social, Higgins moulded Jack to be confident, good with women, outgoing, yet still very much the everyman. However, it wasn’t long after the notebooks started filling up with ink, that Higgins met his future wife and his life began to change. As the years wore on, he realized that the character he had started out wanting to become, became less his hero and more a subject of pity.
“The character is a 36-year-old guy, divorced, and I wouldn’t say cynical towards relationships, but he’s not good with them,” he said.
“It was funny to see that he was lonely, he was looking for the things that I found in life. It was funny to actually take this character and raise him, grow him into something more.”
The book, which Higgins described as a philosophical comedy, focuses a lot on Roman and Greek mythology. The story follows Jack’s journey to the afterlife filled with gods, reapers, demons, angels, party girls and porn stars. However, when Jack meets the Grim Reaper he finds out his file was misplaced and his place in the afterlife is unknown. Higgins’ imagination describes a world where the god Zeus Jupitor is in charge of Hell, or how it is referred to in the book as an underfunded economy. Heaven on the other hand is flourishing and run by god Juno Hera and Zeus Jupitor’s ex-wife, with their ancient and bitter divorce endangering the political landscape of the Astral Plains.
“It’s not about good and evil, because when you die it really is about the difference between the people,” Higgins said. “The war between the two is a divorce trial, not an actual war, because there’s no point to a war when you’re dead. It’s the politics of being dead, so I had to create a whole other world, and find out why things had value, and why certain people were against each other. It was doing that as well as a lot of research.”
Despite faced with the occasional writer’s block and doubts, quitting was never an option for the writer who grew up in Strathmore since age 12. While he felt it took him so many years to complete his book to understand certain complexities and come to certain realizations, his wife Mandee had a hard time believing her husband when he informed her the book was finally ready for publication.
“It’s been a long time and he was off in his own space a lot, but once it comes together it’s hopefully going to be worth it,” Mandee said.
“When he got writer’s block he just wouldn’t write, or when we had kids, he stopped writing for a bit so he could be more involved in our lives. It’s been in his head for so long. I’m very proud of him.”
Faced with the promotion of his book that is currently available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk and Xlibris.com, Higgins will be launching his book at the Strathmore Municipal Library on Nov. 7.