As a child, his father had been a language he was unable to speak, but he was fluent now. The man wanted him to be someone else, and that had been confusing. But he could read the whole book of his father now and he knew that none of it had ever been about him. His own book was separate, and always had been.
Among other things, The Whisper Man is obviously very much about fathers and sons, a theme that runs through several different strands of the book. In the next book, (The Shadows in the US; The Shadow Friend in the UK), my focus is more on the relationship between a son and his mother. Families – whether close or broken, and along with all their complications – are endlessly fascinating to me, and always seem like fertile ground to explore.
When I started work on my third book (The Angel Maker in the US; The Half Burnt House in the UK), I knew that I wanted to write about the relationship between siblings. And I did. But it also ended up being about fathers and sons too. And mothers and sons as well, come to think about it. I can’t seem to help myself, in other words. At this rate, my next book will have to be a 900-page epic family saga just to fit everything in.
