People say don’t judge a book by its cover but readers invariably do just that. The cover is often the last piece of the creative puzzle but in the case of my novel Green Shoots, the idea for the cover came about before I had even started writing the book.
I’ve always been obsessed with the colour green. It’s my favourite and I’ve always surrounded myself by green – from the garden to furnishing and clothing. Of course, green is the colour of nature and the environment, and bathing in green light is proven to be beneficial for your mood. I always find myself drawn to natural surroundings to feel better and I find greenery very comforting.
Calling my novel Green Shoots did present some problems though – it doesn’t sound much like a thriller. It sounds like a book on nature or possibly economics – recalling “green shoots of recovery”. This is partly why the central image of blood dripping off green shoots is so important and the focal point of the cover. With that image, the story is encapsulated – it’s an eco-thriller with a reverence for nature that is marred by violence. The image itself only appears in the story once – in a video released by the killer, effectively conveying his manifesto.
“Out of their ashes, green shoots will grow” – these words became a sort of mantra and again they came to me before even writing the book. As I was writing the first few chapters, I knew I wanted the killer to leave that message at the crime scenes. But as I was writing, I realized it would be far more interesting to have a visual representation of the words, and that’s how the idea of the mural appeared. I liked the idea that the phrase came from somewhere else, repeated by the killer rather than actually created by him. When I read the sentence to myself, I visualised death on the left and rebirth on the right.
The mural, which is the heart of the book, is described in chapter 3: “On the left is a scene of scorched earth, blackened tree stumps, skulls and bones, merging into thick forest on the right with toucans, monkeys and indigenous children. The graffiti written in white in the soil below reads: ‘De sus cenizas crecerán brotes verdes’. My Spanish is good enough to know it means: ‘Out of their ashes, green shoots will grow.’ ”
The mural first appears as a photograph in the first crime scene, but appears later in the book in South America. Its appearance is never fully explained and that was deliberate on my part – I’ve always admired subversive pop-up artists such as Banksy and I had that idea in mind.
When my publishers Cranthorpe Millner designed the book cover, we decided it was too complex to put the mural painting on the front cover. Instead, we put the rainforest scene on the front in the background with the blood-drenched shoots in the foreground, and the images of ashes and tree stumps on the back cover. It works well but in a different way to the mural.
When the book cover was finished, I knew there was still some further creative work to do. I wanted someone to actually paint the mural as I had envisioned it in the book – not on a wall but as a painting. I have no drawing talent at all so I found an artist – my friend Anna Walker, who lives close by in Sussex, England. Over a couple of months, she moved from sketches to completing the painting (see above). It now hangs on my wall. It’s over a meter wide and dominates my living room. It’s very special to me.
This painting very much defines the book. It’s a story of hope coming from despair – both for John personally through his grief, and for the wider world in the struggle to protect nature.
- Follow me on Instagram or visit benwestwood.net.
- Visit annawalker.smugmug.com to see more of Anna’s artwork.
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