Title: Clinically Dead for 40 Minutes, Now He Must Rebuild

**Article:** Patrick Charnley’s debut novel, *This, My Second Life*, draws power from the author's own near-death experience. It tells a moving story of recovery. After a cardiac arrest left him clinically dead for 40 minutes, young Jago Trevarno returns to his childhood home in Cornwall. He seeks shelter with his "off-gridder" uncle, Jacob. The term "off-gridder" means someone who lives independently from public utilities. Jago’s world has collapsed. His mother died of cancer, his father is absent, and his city life has evaporated. That life, described as a "runaway train" from his grief, ended with his heart attack. Now 20 years old, Jago’s existence is reduced to hard labor on a subsistence farm. The work is high above the rugged Atlantic coast. He must find a way to rebuild. As Jago says, he must pick through the wreckage of his life. He must find the scattered pieces of himself and put them back together, one by one. His story is one of starting again from nothing.