Chris Whitaker at the Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival

We are fortunate to have many literary festivals in Suffolk, with Bury St Edmund’s Literature Festival being on our doorstep. In October Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colours of the Dark, was interviewed by renowned novelist and festival programme curator, Kate Sawyer. Author talks seldom come close to the revelations behind his latest masterwork. 

The novel focuses on Patch, a one-eyed, bullied boy, who, buoyed by ‘pirate’ confidence, instinctively steps in to try and prevent the kidnapping of a girl in his school, only to be taken instead. This event sets the novel in motion and its impact ricochets across the small town community in the immediate aftermath, and the years that follow. Chris believes that he can track his own life at these no return points. There was a perceptible shock of horror across the room when he revealed that he was stabbed at 19 in a mugging that he severely under-estimated. ‘I just thought no, you can’t have my phone, you’re not going to use that’ (he was looking at a large knife). It went right through him. His phone was taken and, with no way to call for help, then miraculously drove himself to hospital.

This novel has a hidden yet influential autobiographical foundation. Chris revealed the most difficult part wasn’t the physical recovery from the attack, but the PTSD following, the sleepless nights, the anger, the nightmares. Chris turned to writing as his therapy and escape. 

In his bid to heal, he was urged to return to Florida, his last happy place, visited as a child. It may seem simple to just set a story in America (all his novels are and all, he expects, will be) but the believability of his writing comes from gritty, painstaking work. ‘I am a slow writer’ he admitted, ‘it will take me 5 or 6 years to finish a book’. A sheer, incalculable amount of research goes into perfecting every detail. He has three screens, one with a setting picture, one with his document, and another with every sense and perception that his character is observing. Using taste, smell, hearing, sight, all the minute elements have to be just so, from which birds reside in each specific area, to the seasonal flowering plants, native species and architecture. 

He starts each novel with dialogue, but this too has its challenges. He found a website with interviews from small town residents across the country, to accurately capture cadence and dialect. Then, for each and every paragraph, he writes around 1,000 words before editing. A passage on mining took a month, as he became pretty much an expert in the field from afar. So too with crime procedure, ‘you can read the FBI manual if you’re a masochist’, he said chuckling, ‘you can find exactly what you need to find out’. Unbelievable for a man who was born and resides in England.

The evening provided a new extra dimension to the novel (that I urge you to read). It was a privilege to listen to a master of his craft. We were all impressed at how he channelled such pain and anguish, and the horror of surviving trauma, into a career that keeps reaching new highs. Long may his writing career continue. 

James Phillips