A (cont.): The driving force in the world today is the human heart — that is, human emotions. (Yeats, Blake — every poet, come to think of it — has always told us that.) Our tools have become very powerful. Hate, not bombs, destroys cities. Desire, not bricks, rebuilds them. Do we as a species have the emotional maturity and the wisdom to use our powerful tools well? Hands up, all who think the answer is Yes.

Q: Though the book's premise is serious, you included many wordplays and moments of deadpan humour. Was this difficult to achieve, or did it arrive naturally during the storytelling process?

A: My relatives are all from Nova Scotia. That's sort of like being from Maine. The deadpan humour and the skepticism about human motives are similar. The French have an expression, ‘Anglo-Saxon humour.’ It isn't the same as wit. It's dark; it's when something is funny and awful at the same time. ‘Gallows humour’ is called that partly because highwaymen about to be hanged were much admired if they could crack a joke in the face of death. When things are really dismal, you can laugh or you can cave in completely. Jimmy tries to laugh, though some of the time he's out of control, as most of us would be in his position. But if you can laugh, you're still alive. You haven't given up yet.