SARAH J. HARRIS

I first came across synaesthesia nine years ago, during my work as an education journalist - and have been fascinated ever since. Researchers at Edinburgh University had carried out the first ever study into the prevalence in childhood of the condition that causes a ‘merging of the senses’. The study estimated that the average UK primary school has at least two pupils who experience colour when they hear or see words. But researchers warned of a lack of awareness in schools - a finding that probably still resonates today.

The findings stayed with me long after my synaesthesia feature was published in a national newspaper in 2008. I often wondered what it must be like for a child when people struggle to understand their daily experiences - or simply don’t want to know. Over the years, I’ve kept cuttings from newspapers and magazines about synaesthesia and also avidly read up on another condition called prosopagnosia or face blindness. The inability to recognise familiar faces affects about one in 50 people and can be particularly stressful - and dangerous - for children. Among the pupils in a corridor, who is their real friend and who is their tormentor? Outside the school gates, who is their mum? Who is a total stranger?

I wanted to write a novel that combined the joy of seeing a world through colour, with the dangers of never really knowing who to trust. The character of Jasper eventually came to me in a dream - a harrowing image of a young boy tearing across a suburban street at night, terror etched on his face. When I woke up, I realised a particular colour could have traumatised the boy. Perhaps he had face blindness and identified people by the colour of their voices. What if the voice colour of someone he knew had transformed to a horrifying shade as they screamed? What if he had seen the colour of their murder? The book grew from there and I was enormously helped throughout the process of writing it by the synaesthesia and face blind community, here in the UK and the United States. I interviewed experts and many people with both conditions to make my novel as authentic as possible and to help with plot points.

I was also inspired by wild ring-necked parakeets, which I often see bickering in my back garden and local parks. I imagined Jasper standing at his bedroom window with binoculars, enjoying the vivid colours of their songs. I interviewed wildlife experts about the nesting habits of the birds and had lessons in painting with Acrylics as Jasper is a keen painter who captures on canvas the sounds of the baby and adult parakeets nesting in his neighbour, Bee Larkham’s oak tree. I painted the different hues of voices and the most important picture of all, the colour of Bee Larkham’s murder - ice blue crystals with glittery edges and jagged, silver icicles - to learn how Jasper would also eventually attempt the horrifying task.

The extensive research was crucial - and I have to say, thoroughly enjoyable. I still paint with my children and watch the parakeets in my back garden. I remain a member of a worldwide online synaesthesia forum and since finishing my novel I’ve become one of the founding members of the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists and Scientists (IASAS).

My interest in Jasper’s intriguing world will never wane. I hope you will want to experience it too.