TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager says she “may never have loved a book as much” as she loves her July selection, “All the Colors of the Dark” by Chris Whitaker.
“I read it over a year ago, but it has stayed with me in such a beautiful way,” Jenna says.
On Tuesday, July 23, Jenna will sit down with Chris for the next Read With Jenna event. The virtual event will feature an extensive conversation with the author, followed by discussions with other Read With Jenna members in breakout rooms.
Sign up for the Read With Jenna event with Chris Whitaker here.
"All the Colors of the Dark" is about "two best friends — both misfits — Patch and Saint," Jenna says.
"They live in a small town and the small town is such a part of the story,” she says. “Something happens to them when they are young, which catapults a whole life of friendship and chasing each other.”
The nearly 600-page book spans decades of Patch and Saint's friendship, starting from when a teenage Patch intervenes when a man tries to abduct a young girl in rural Missouri — and how that decision shapes the rest of his life.
“All the Colors of the Dark” by Chris Whitaker
“It is so beautiful. It is fast-paced, I know it looks kind of big, but I read it in a weekend — one weekend,” Jenna says. “I know you all will love it too. I can’t wait for you to read ‘All the Colors of the Dark.’”
Whitaker, the bestselling British author behind “We Begin at the End,” tells TODAY.com portions of the book were inspired by his own experiences as a child.
“I think a lot of Patch came from my experiences. When I was really little, my mom’s partner broke my arm and it was a really traumatic experience,” Whitaker says. “Writing this book, I’ve looked back to that event, and charted the rest of my life — the mistakes that I’ve made and the bad things that have happened to me and I think, in part, they’re all connected to this trauma when I was a child.”
“That’s something I considered when writing Patch — how much of how much of it is choice and how much of it is put upon us,” he continues.
Whitaker, 42, shares that he was also stabbed when he was a teenager, and that his medical providers suggested he try writing as part of his therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“They said to write about the trauma, but change the location to the last place you were happy,” he says. “My dad had taken us to Disney World, so the U.S. became, like, my safe place. So when I’d sit down to write, all my problems were in London, but I’d mentally traveled 4,000 miles away, and left everything behind and felt like clarity of thought was easier to find.”
Whitaker was working at a library when he started writing what would become “All the Colors of the Dark." His process began by researching the book's setting.
“I’m a really strong believer in a gut feeling,” he says. “I was flipping through books about the U.S., like nonfiction books and travel guides, and I came upon a picture of an area called Dogwood Canyon in Missouri. It just was really beautiful and it kind of stopped me in my tracks, and I got this feeling like this is where the story is supposed to be set.”
He adds with a smile: “I had the character of Patch who is a pirate, and I kind of wanted him to be a pirate that had never been anywhere near the ocean.”
Whitaker says he first began writing “All the Colors of the Dark” with a simple pitch: “Two abducted teenagers fall in love in the pitch-black basement they’re being held in, having never seen each other, and the boy escapes and can’t find his way back to the girl.”
The book began as a missing person mystery, Whitaker says, but it quickly evolved into a decades-long story centering on Patch and Saint’s friendship — and a four-year writing process for the author.
“I knew how it would end, but as for how I’d get there, it was kind of still up for grabs. I think I missed my deadline by about two years,” Whitaker says with a laugh.
“I could see Patch and I could see Saint, and I knew that the key to the story would be their friendship, and it’d be this epic friendship story,” he continues. “And from there, it just ran and ran, and I didn’t want to stop as well... I didn’t want to let it go.”
He now describes the book as “a sweeping story of friendship — first and foremost, platonic friendship.”
“I think there’s something quite beautiful about it. Like, if you’re choosing a partner, there’s other things at play like attraction, family you can’t choose, things like that,” he says. “But choosing to be friends with someone is like this gift that you’re giving them.”
The novel also looks at the idea of how childhood trauma can impact one’s life, Whitaker says.
“If something bad happens in your childhood, is your future predetermined, or is it still open for you to write? I wanted to really explore that because we all have had these moments in our lives,” he says. “I liked the idea of there being two versions of our lives — Patch does this amazingly brave thing at the start of the story, and we find out that it’s really hard for him to overcome that."
“We’re kind of rooting for him to do that throughout the book,” he continues. “By the end of it, we’re going to find out if he’s able to leave that behind and move forward and determine his own future.”
Jenna describes the book as “genre-bending:” “When you first start, it’s a mystery, and you don’t know what’s going to happen ... and then during parts of it, I felt like it reminded me of ‘The Goldfinch’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’”
Whitaker says he still can’t believe Jenna picked “All the Colors of the Dark” for her book club.
“I know that we’re quite far down the road now and I’m talking to you here about it, but it seems like in a world of books, I can’t quite believe that my book was chosen,” he says. “I feel like most authors have a level of imposter syndrome, but mine is like, I feel a bit like, ‘I’m not worthy.’ But I’m very, very grateful.”
Whitaker, who says he was working three jobs while writing the book, dealing with a house in disarray (“with no roof on it,” he describes) and awaiting a baby, says he hasn’t had a chance to go to Missouri, until now — he has a book tour stop scheduled in St. Louis in July.
“All the Colors of the Dark” publishes on June 25, and Whitaker’s U.S. book tour begins in Seattle on the same day.
“This is the first time I’ve been properly nervous for a book to come out,” he says. “And I think it’s because, at this stage in my career, I know that I can’t write a better book — like this is the absolute best that I’ve got.”
