Content Warning: This section of the guide includes mentions of child abduction, abuse, sexual assault, predatory behavior, mental illness, violence against women, domestic violence, abortion, and suicide.

All the Colors of the Dark traces The Lasting Effects of Trauma on the novel’s main characters. One of the messages Chris Whitaker emphasizes in the novel is the idea that violent events affect many people and their impact ripples outward, lasting for years. One of the characters most impacted by trauma is Patch, whose life is delineated into a “before” and “after” the kidnapping. Though he grows up in a home heavily influenced by poverty and addiction, Patch is still a child at the beginning of the novel. He dresses up like a pirate and imagines an adventurous future: “At thirteen he believed entirely that there was gold beyond the Ozark Plateau […] a brighter world just waiting for him” (3).

After his encounter with Aaron, he thinks “he knew it could not have been so beautiful. That nothing was ever so beautiful in his life” (3). His encounter with violence takes the beauty out of his world. When he is rescued and returned home, he feels alienated from his old life: “Patch’s bedroom was no longer his” (132).