I have no doubt that my Dad, Jim Higgins, was writing about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War in early February 1939, while still on the boat back to Canada .
Major Cecil-Smith, a journalist before volunteering for Spain, was to be editor of a book about the Canadian volunteers who fought in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. He asked Dad to make some contributions; they wanted it out as quickly as possible.
Last October, I dropped everything, and went to Spain. I had reached a point in editing my father’s memoir, where I felt stuck. I had many questions, and few answers.
I thought I might find some answers in Spain. More than that, I was compelled to see the place in Corbera d’Ebre where my father, Jim Higgins, rescued Manuel Alvarez.
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I must have loads of chutzpah*. When I chose my second round of beta readers, I went right to the top. One is a senior librarian at the University of Toronto and three are academics/authors in fields directly relevant to Jim Higgins’ memoir.
Continue readingThere 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.