“Sometimes I wonder if the path I have chosen is connected to that act of violence I committed as a child” – The Irish Times

Some writers’ personal stories are even more dramatic than those they put on paper. Chris Whitaker’s path to writing did not follow the usual gentle path of a childhood devoted to reading. Rather, writing evolved into a desperate attempt to cope with PTSD, depression and addiction after a series of traumatic life experiences.

“When I was 10, my parents divorced and new people came into my life,” Whitaker says in a video from his home in Hertfordshire. He is a youthful-looking 42-year-old, laid-back but with very neat features and the kind of excellent haircut you usually only see on members of boy bands. He recalls the night his mother’s then-boyfriend broke 10-year-old Whitaker’s arm.

“I had a broken arm for a whole night and wasn’t allowed to tell anyone or get help. It was a really long night. After that, my life took a turn. I don’t like to think about fate and all that, but sometimes I think about the path I’ve taken and wonder if it’s related to that act of violence I committed as a child.”

It’s these kinds of before-and-after moments that Whitaker explores in his riveting new novel, All the Colours of the Dark. The book tells the story of best friends Patch and Saint, a boy and a girl growing up in a small American town called Monta Clare in the 1970s. When Patch is kidnapped, he is held captive in a dark basement with a young woman named Grace. With only each other for company, he falls in love with her, but when he escapes, there is no sign of Grace. The police believe Patch’s mind has been playing tricks on him, but he embarks on a 27-year search for the truth. Saint, meanwhile, embarks on a shadow journey to find justice.

It’s a genre-bending epic that’s part love story, part mystery and crime novel, part bildungsroman, and a philosophical exploration of whether a single moment can change a person’s entire life. Whitaker says he used his experience of having his arm broken as a child as the basis for Patch’s time in the basement.

“I know what it’s like to scream and no one helps you. I think when that happens, something changes. I think you become – I don’t know if it’s harder, but I was definitely calmer afterwards. I think I only put it together when I was writing this book, because I went all the way back to my childhood and discovered that moment with the sliding doors, and then I started to connect everything. I started to think about my brain and whether it was rewired then.”

It was definitely not fun, but it definitely became a problem. There was always a way to escape or not feel anything

— Whitaker on drug use

It was another traumatic experience that got Whitaker writing. When he was 19, he was mugged but refused to give his phone to his attacker, who then stabbed Whitaker three times. “I think I had a problem with feeling like a victim because I was powerless as a 10-year-old. I flat-out refused (to hand over the phone). It didn’t feel like a conscious decision. The knife went through one side and came out another,” he laughs now, seemingly incredulous. “I still have some horrible scars.”

After the attack, he struggled to cope. “There’s this kind of toxic male behavior where you’re expected to deal with it and pull yourself together. I remember talking to my dad and my friends and they patted me on the shoulder and told me to keep going. I just remember feeling really depressed and down. I kept replaying it in my head, wondering why I acted that way and why I couldn’t function afterward. I know now that it was PTSD, but I didn’t know it at the time.”

He couldn’t eat or sleep and turned to drugs and alcohol. “It definitely wasn’t fun, but it definitely became a problem,” he says. “It was always a way of escaping or not feeling anything. It was the worst time. Over twenty years later, I still worry about feeling that way again. It keeps up with everything good in my life. It’s just there in the background, reminding me not to get complacent.”

At one point, he felt suicidal and decided to put his thoughts on paper, ostensibly to explain to his parents how he felt. He realized that writing down his feelings gave him relief. On a trip to the library, he happened to discover a self-help book that suggested writing techniques for dealing with trauma. “It talked about a technique where you write down what happened, but replace the people involved with fictional characters, change the location to the last place you were happy, and change the outcome to something you feel comfortable with.”

This process eventually led to him making a living writing books.

By the age of 20, Whitaker had turned his life around and was working as a stockbroker in London. But the city’s culture brought him back to drugs and alcohol. When he exceeded his trading limits and lost £1 million, he spent the next five years paying back his bosses. By his early 30s, he was finally debt-free and making good money again. So why wasn’t he happy?

“I thought once I paid off the debt everything would be OK, but it wasn’t. I read a book called The Last Child by John Hart, where he talked about how he gave up a very successful career as a lawyer to become a writer and do what made him happy. One day I got a call and was offered a promotion, and I quit on the spot because John Hart had inspired me.”

Whitaker’s wife was pregnant at the time and he was the sole breadwinner. Did she find John Hart equally inspiring? Whitaker says he can’t repeat what she said. “They won’t be able to print it. She wasn’t impressed, but she was also relieved because when you live with someone who has something wrong with them and they finally open up, it’s a heavy weight off your shoulders.”

Writing for trends and thinking about where it will be on the shelf is the enemy of creativity. It’s the quickest way to screw something up

— Whitaker on turning away from crime fiction

They sold their house and car and moved to Spain, where the cost of living was lower. Whitaker wrote his debut novel, Tall Oaks, which came out in 2016, followed by All the Wicked Girls in 2017. When his third book, We Begin at the End, came out in 2020, Whitaker’s expectations of success were modest. But the book became an instant New York Times bestseller and won numerous prestigious awards, including a Theakston Crime Novel of the Year and a CWA Gold Dagger Award. “Suddenly I felt like a lot of people were waiting for this book,” he says of All the Colors of the Dark.

Although he’s on tour in America until Christmas, he’s already working on his next novel. “It’s called The Timekeeper and it’s a love story without crime, a bit like The Time Traveller’s Wife meets The Fault in Our Stars… if I can pull it off,” he says, laughing.

Does he fear giving up the crime genre that has made him so successful? “That’s the last thing I ever think about – writing for trends, thinking about where it’s going to be on the shelf – that’s the enemy of creativity. That’s the quickest way to screw something up.”

He probably won’t have to worry about that any time soon. All The Colors Of The Dark has the potential to be a bestseller – it is the July selection of Jenna Bush Hager’s book club for the Today Show in the USA and is already being adapted into a multi-part television series by a production team that includes Sue Neagle, former president of HBO.

Does he ever think about what would have happened if he had not experienced these traumas in his young life and thus discovered writing?

“Sometimes I imagine a different me and the life I would have had, probably happier in some ways, but I might not have found the writing that I think is my calling. I might not be able to write the stories that I write because I might not be able to empathize with the characters, but it’s hard because I don’t feel as present sometimes.”

For him, writing is still an important escape. “If I don’t sit down and switch off for too long, I feel it mentally. I feel really stressed and in trouble. If I hadn’t gone to the library, borrowed the self-help book and started writing, none of this would have happened. I don’t know what would have happened.”

All the Colours of the Dark is published by Orion