Jimmy Leighton is a small-time second-floor hood in Boston until he breaks into the wrong Cambridge basement, fiddles with most definitely the wrong quantum computer and wakes up in Chicago with a brand new life and a swollen bank account. But then that pain flares in his head, and he’s taken to Afghanistan.
Or a boxing ring.
Or Mass.
The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton, a NeoText novel available now and co-written by comedian/television impresario Dave Thomas and mystery legend Max Allan Collins, is a thriller and a murder mystery ensconced in one key question: How do the choices we make shape our lives – and what would happen if we made different decisions along the way?
I talked via email with Thomas about the book, his career and how the partnership with Collins came together.
The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton is about a guy who experiences a host of different lives – from millionaire to priest to bank robber – he could have lived based on the choices he either made or didn’t make. So, tell me – what’s the variety of Dave Thomases out there in the Many Worlds? Make it to astronaut in any of them? Or maybe an evil cable news commentator?
I don’t think any of my alternate universe lives would be radically different than the life I actually lived. I was a copywriter at an ad agency for a couple of years. That was fun for a while – but I know I couldn’t have stayed there because, well, I didn’t. And I might have been a standup comic instead of a sketch writer/performer. I tried it a few times. Came close to moving there but then comedy became governed by political correctness, and I knew I would never be able to make that work. After SCTV and Strange Brew, I toyed with medical school for a year. Got accepted but got a lucrative acting job so I moved that way. I started an animation studio in 2001, and we did some shows and a lot of corporate stuff – even hired a bunch of programmers and built a virtual world. I produced 144 episodes of a game show simultaneously with acting and writing on ABC’s “Grace Under Fire.” So as you can see, there was no shortage of alternate lives for me in entertainment.
Obviously, on this one world alone you’ve had many different professional accomplishments in comedy and television – what made you decide to pick up novel writing?
I had the idea for Jimmy Leighton first as a television show. But when I felt I couldn’t sell it as a TV show (It was too complicated for the execs to see as a pitch), I decided to write it as a book. But I got distracted after writing three chapters, and then I met Max and he liked it. So, we decided to write it together. Truth be told, I probably never would’ve finished if it hadn’t been for Max Allan Collins.
If you were going to pick out a co-writer for your sci-fi/romance/action/mystery story, you could have done a lot worse than Max Allan Collins. How did the partnership start, and I hear you guys worked out the book over Zoom? Is that right?
Max and I met through a mutual friend, Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants). We clicked instantly and became instant friends. The collaboration was easy after that. And yes, it was a COVID Book, totally written on Zoom and the phone. Max and I have never been in the same room together unless it was an electronic room.
Where did the nugget for this story begin? How did the character of Jimmy Leighton start to come together, and are there any alternate lives that you two talked about but couldn’t work into the book?
The inspiration for this novel is the work of physicist Hugh Everett III, whose Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics spawned the idea of alternate universes. It seemed like a fun idea to explore because the idea that in all the choices we each make in life, the “road not taken” might still exist in some other reality. That seemed worthy of exploring in the life of a fictional character. I don’t remember any other lives for Jimmy that Max and I considered for this book, but we did talk about how we might approach a sequel.
I’m going to state that this is an incredibly stupid question, *but* what would you say to Aaron Paul as Jimmy and Scarlett Johansson as Bernadette? I think that would be a fun watch.
I can’t really visualize Aaron Paul as Jimmy – even though he’s a terrific actor. For me the perfect Jimmy would be Sam Rockwell. And Scarlett Johansson? Yes, of course, I love her in anything.
Finally, what’s coming next for you? Think you’ll want to write another novel?
I’m halfway through another book and pitching a couple of television shows.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
