{"id":39402,"date":"2025-07-31T19:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/i-left-school-with-no-qualifications-now-im-a-hit-writer-in-the-us-books-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T19:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:33:09","slug":"i-left-school-with-no-qualifications-now-im-a-hit-writer-in-the-us-books-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/i-left-school-with-no-qualifications-now-im-a-hit-writer-in-the-us-books-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"I left school with no qualifications \u2013 now I’m a hit writer in the US | Books | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Chris Whitaker has become the literary toast of America with his novel All The Colours of the Dark (Image: Courtesy Chris Whitaker)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Six months before All The Colours Of The Dark was published, author Chris Whitaker heard on the QT that it was going to be picked by Jenna Bush Hager \u2013 daughter of former US President George W Bush \u2013 for her book club.Along with Hollywood<\/a> star Reese Witherspoon and chat show queen Oprah Winfrey, Jenna\u2019s book club is the biggest and most influential in America. It was a huge moment for the London-born author \u2013 and he wasn\u2019t allowed to tell a soul!<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re sworn to secrecy but, even then, you never really know how well the book will do,\u201d explains Chris. \u201cIt can still bomb \u2013 it happens all the time, it\u2019s not a guarantee of success \u2013 but when I finished All The Colours Of The Dark I knew it was the best book I\u2019d ever written and if people didn\u2019t like it, I couldn\u2019t give them any more. That was a vulnerable feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the event, the novel, published in July last year, was a smash-hit, spending 22 weeks on the prestigious New York Times bestsellers list and turning Chris, 43, into one of the UK\u2019s biggest cultural exports. It has sold a staggering 1.5 million copies around the world and, having just come out in paperback in the US, is back in thebestsellers\u2019 charts. Its author has now visited27 US states and counting, after touring exhaustively over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

Chris\u2019s breakthrough book, We Begin At The End, won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year at Sunday Express-supported festival in Harrogate in 2021. It had a 20-year gestation. Chris had begun writing as a form of therapy after being stabbed during a phone robbery aged just 19.<\/p>\n

The Montana-set story introduced the remarkable Duchess Day Radley \u2013 a 13-year-old trying to protect her family from a killer who returns to their town after 30 years in prison for murdering her aunt. It was a tough act to follow, but having become a full-time writer in the meantime, the former estate agent and City trader conceived his follow-up at the beginning of 2018 and spent the next five years writing it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Chris<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Chris Whitaker’s three children gaze up at his billboard celebrating one million book sales (Image: Courtesy Chris Whitaker)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cThe pitch was two abducted teenagers who fall in love in the pitch-black basement where they\u2019re being held having never seen each other \u2013 the boy escapes and can\u2019t find his way back to the girl,\u201d says Chris. While elements changed over the course of the writing, that ingenious top line remained and the resulting characters \u2013 Joseph \u201cPatch\u201d Macauley and Grace, the voice in the darkness who inspires him \u2013 soon captured the hearts of readers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was set up like a mystery but everyone who had read We Begin At The End was messaging me asking what happens to Duchess \u2013 because when the book ends she\u2019s 14 and everyone was like, \u2018What happens to this girl?\u2019. And I didn\u2019t know the answer and it was a big question: \u2018What happens to a child that has had a traumatic start in life as they enter adulthood?\u2019. So that changed the shape of All The Colours Of The Dark. It became less of a mystery and more of a saga.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting book, which spans generations and mixes a missing persons mystery with a serial killer thriller and heart-breaking love story, sees Patch escape \u2013 kick-starting an epic search with his friend Saint Brown to find the girl from the darkness, even though there\u2019s no tangible evidence she ever existed in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you decide that you\u2019re going to follow a character from childhood into adulthood, it no longer fits neatly into a genre,\u201d Chris admits. \u201cYou know, I think the crime\u2019s the least interesting thing in the book. It started as a coming of age book and then became a book about friendship and first love and family \u2013 and less about the actual crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The extraordinary novel was shortlisted for this year\u2019s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2025, missing out to Abir Mukherjee\u2019s pulse-pounding thriller Hunted, but Chris remains sanguine. \u201cI\u2019m happy it was Abir\u2019s year,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s such a brilliant book.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Chris<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Talking about his book at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (Image: Matt Nixson)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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However, he admits to occasionally having to \u201cpinch himself\u201d over the reaction to All The Colours Of The Dark \u2013 including meeting former President George W Bush during a charity event at the Bush family\u2019s Walker\u2019s Point Estate in Maine. \u201cHe just appeared beside me, gave a quick speech and then shook my hand and asked if I wanted to come to the main house and have a look at his paintings,\u201d Chris recalls. \u201cHe\u2019s got a big collection, he paints himself, he\u2019s really talented. He\u2019s incredibly charming, funny, and still has that kind of mischievousness, a bit like a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continues: \u201cThat was one of the moments where I thought of how far the book has got me. From someone who dropped out of school with no qualifications, no real education, to walking around with the ex-President. This is what storytelling can do.\u201d He is also full of praise for his American readers. \u201cThey have their arms wide open when I go to events,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are genuinely shocked when I open my mouth, because they think I\u2019m American. They\u2019re just so welcoming. The book has really hit the sweet spot of book club fiction there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the audio book, which has done equally well, Chris plumped for American actor Edoardo Ballerini, 55, who appeared in The Sopranos among other shows. \u201cI had a very distinct voice in mind when I read the book back to myself. It\u2019s not in my London voice. They sent me eight different actors reading the same passage, and Edoardo was head and shoulders. Not just the best, but the best for this book \u2013 exactly how I imagined it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having met President Bush, and seen former First Lady Dr Jill Biden pictured on a beach reading his novel, Chris\u2019s proudest moment was taking his three children, aged 14, 11 and five, to see a billboard in London advertising its success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took my kids to see it, there\u2019s a photo of it on my Instagram<\/a>, and they\u2019re holding hands looking at it, and it said over one million copies sold \u2013 and that was the first time it really dawned on me, seeing it on this big thing,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On TV in America with Jenna Bush Hager for her influential Read With Jenna book club (Image: Chris Whitaker)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cMy 11-year-old is a massive Arsenal fan. We were at the Emirates and he said he was working out how many Emirates stadiums\u2019 [full of people] have read the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his enormous success, he adds: \u201cI genuinely think it\u2019s because I relate to the characters I\u2019m writing. I had a difficult childhood and all of my books feature teenagers having a difficult time when they\u2019re kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that feeling. I couldn\u2019t have written Patch and Saint and I couldn\u2019t have written Duchess if I couldn\u2019t empathise with what they\u2019re going through. I think that is the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up is a love story for adults called The Time Keeper. It is due in 2027 but Chris admits it might take a bit longer, given how much travelling he\u2019s had to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks at the idea of fate and time and how much control we really have over either of those things \u2013 and it\u2019s a big sprawling love story,\u201d he adds, praising his \u201cbrilliant\u201d editor, Emad Akhtar, for his patience with All The Colours.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor four years, me and Emad met for lunch every few months in London and he couldn\u2019t have been more supportive,\u201d he smiles. \u201cI missed my deadline by two years and at no point was there any pressure. I wasn\u2019t told to write a certain type of book, I was given complete freedom and support to just write the book I needed to write.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he isn\u2019t planning to return to crime writing, he adds of the Festival: \u201cWherever I am in the world, I see Harrogate on the calendar and I feel it\u2019s like coming home to the readers, to the other writers, to people that run the festival. It is my safe place.\u201d<\/p>\n