Murder Mystery. Not two words usually associated with a coming-of-age story. But that is the lens I wrote my debut novel Heaven’s Ghosts through. A story about a young deaf boy, Sam, growing up in a small town. He is ignored by most in his community. But he harbors an interesting secret–he can see and talk to the dead. When he’s approached by the spirit of a young boy who recently died, Sam gets pulled into investigating his death. Along the way he begins to accept his ability and become more comfortable with his place in the world.
When I set out to write Heaven’s Ghosts I always knew I wanted it to be a coming-of-age story. The idea really began with Sam. I had this image of a kid who is deaf but can see and hear spirits. And I loved how this gave a duality to his character. He exists in two different worlds, the living and the dead, and two different communities, the deaf and the hearing. From the beginning I knew I wanted him to be young. One, because I wanted to appeal to younger readers. But also because I liked the juxtaposition of having a young kid being immersed in the world of the dead. And because of that, having a different viewpoint on death and grief. For Sam, when people die that is not their end, many stay. In fact, Sam gets to know people better after they die.
Death and grief are common themes associated with a coming-of-age story. Usually it is the main character having to experience these things for the first time. In doing so, they lose some of their innocence. What I wanted to do with this book and Sam is turn that idea on its head a bit. Sam has been confronted with the idea of death since he was five. Spirits and the paranormal are his normal, it is the living who he has trouble connecting with. Because of that the death in this book had to take on a more tragic aspect. This is where the idea for a murder mystery came about.
The murder mystery aspect of the book really took shape when I came up with Kip’s character. Kip is the young boy that dies and approaches Sam because he believes there is something suspicious about his death. He began as a minor character, a new spirit helping Sam transition. However, as I began to flesh out Kip, I realized his story would be a good foil for Sam’s. Kip who never thought about death or dying finds himself dead and floating around as a spirit. Whereas Sam spends his time speaking with the dead. But as the story progresses he pulls himself more into the world of the living.
Once I had decided that Kip was going to be a bigger character, I realized that I couldn’t just give him an ordinary death. Kip dying suspiciously allowed Sam to investigate. This made him interact with the living more. It also made Sam confront the darker, tragic, side of death. Sam’s forced to confront those who cared for and loved Kip. To deal with their grief while also confronting the idea that a boy not much older than him is no longer alive and will never get to grow up.
While planning out the plot of Heaven’s Ghosts I had to consider both the key mystery elements and the key coming-of-age elements and how best to mix them. It was in many ways like planning out two different stories and then finding where they intertwined. The easiest way of combining these two stories was by having key moments in the mystery also influence Sam’s growth.
As Sam investigates, he is forced to do things he previously had avoided such as interacting with others in his small town. By doing so he begins to pull himself into the world of the living and begins to accept himself and what he can do. At the beginning of the book, he feels out of place and stuck like an island between two worlds. But as the story progresses and the investigation throws him into different situations, he realizes that he is not an island, but a bridge connecting his worlds.
In the end, Heaven’s Ghosts ended up becoming not only a coming-of-age story for Sam, but also for Kip and the rest of Sam’s friends. Through the investigation and the adventures the crew go on, they learn about life and themselves while forming connections and friendships with each other. All while solving a murder.
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Heaven’s Ghosts
A young boy’s apparent accidental drowning, a mysterious drifter, the town recluse, a deaf boy who can hear the voices of spirits, and the mystery that connects them all.
Samson Roe comes from a family of fake psychics his mother being the most recent perpetrator of the con. However, Sam has a secret that he has not revealed to anyone, he can speak with ghosts. The only problem is that Sam is deaf. So, though he can hear the voices of the dead, the living are silent to him. When a boy named Kip Green drowns in the picturesque town of Heaven Maine nobody suspects anything sinister. That is, until Kip makes a visit to Samson and reveals that he believes his death to be anything but an accident. Together they begin to investigate what really happened and in the process begin to unravel a thirty-seven year old mystery.
