There will be those who question how I went about editing a memoir written by someone long dead. Did I put words in his mouth? Did I change his voice? How did I deal with the inevitable, questions, puzzles and mistakes.
It happened, first, in January, 2018. I was at a dinner party in San Miguel de Allende. The host had steered the conversation towards my plans to publish my father’s 1930s memoir.
I was telling the other guests a bit about him, when a fellow Canadian asked, “What was your father’s name?” I said, “Jim Higgins”. He replied, “I’m pretty sure I just heard about him on the news.” I said, “Impossible!”, and promptly forgot about it.