Listening to The Whispers of a Tragedy Author Greg Howard Explores a Childhood’s Loss JAMES GRADY
Local author Greg Howard grew up on the coast of South Carolina in a strict, conservative Christian environment, where the tragic loss of his mother at a young age would force him to escape into the arts: singing, playing piano, acting, writing songs, and making up stories. After Nashville, Tennessee after college, Howard would finally come out and, after a long holding pattern in the music industry, eventually get serious about writing books. He stumbled into writing for young adult and middle grade audiences, but he has brought those genre’s readers a sensitive and realistic depiction of the lives
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they live. His debut young adult novel, Social Intercourse, has been described as provocative and hilarious. Last month, Putnam/Penguin released his first middle grade novel, The Whispers, which is one part mystery, one part selfexploration. Howard sat down with O&AN to discuss his writing, and the very personal look into his past the novel provides. GRADY: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the book? HOWARD: The Whispers is a story about a boy growing up in South Carolina,
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in the country. He’s 11 years old and his mother goes missing. And he believes that the police aren’t doing everything they can to find her. And he feels like he’s becoming a suspect, because he can’t remember what happened that day. That ties into a bedtime story his mother told him about mythical creatures called the Whispers, who know all the secrets to the universe. So, Riley believes that if he can go and find the Whispers in the woods, they will help him find this mother. Of course, none of that turns out the way he thinks it will. It’s really a story about childhood trauma and being isolated as a gay kid in the South.
