Benjamin Whitmer's Blog

Delinquency, drugs, prison, violent death. Sitting in a Parisian restaurant, Benjamin Whitmer, handsome face, stormy blue eyes, declines the destinies that could have been his. We would not dare to write such a cliché if it were not for the truth of this man: literature saved him.

Full interview here.

Benjamin Whitmer may be an angry writer, but he smiles a lot, visibly delighted to talk about his literary work, which has still not been published in his own country, the United States. In France, it is at Gallmeister that we can read his chiaroscuro portrait of the American working class, inky black intrigues which follow the destinies of characters crushed by the steamroller of an American dreams. His latest novel, Dead Stars, concludes his trilogy on factory towns, these places whose beating heart is industrial activity, the vital organ according to which all social life is structured.

Full interview here.

In Dead Stars, his latest novel published by Gallmeister, Benjamin Whitmer tackles the violence in American society. The writer from Colorado is one of the guests of Le Goéland masque, the Penmarc'h black novel and comics festival.

Full interview here.

In Dead Stars, his latest novel published by Gallmeister, Benjamin Whitmer tackles the violence in American society. The writer from Colorado is one of the guests of Le Goéland masque, the Penmarc'h black novel and comics festival.

Full interview here.

"I don't think there's a single thing made up about the factory in Dead Stars. Even the accident that takes place in the middle of the book is based on a real incident report."

Full interview here.

“When everything goes wrong, the worst thing you can do is think." Benjamin Whitmer's short sentences are punchy, grating, but as dry as Hack Turner's existence in 1986 in Plainview, Colorado. And the author of Pike or Escape (Gallmeister, 2012 and 2018) knows a thing or two about arid destinies, irrigated only by these bad alcohols from which the worst storms of anger germinate. These bursts of fists and disillusionment, Hack and his brother Whitey suffered a few downpours in their shabby town, a company town as they say in the United States to define these open-air dying houses articulated around a single company, here a plutonium factory with murderous safety standards.

Full review here.

A fireplace flames happily in the heart of winter. Its fuel? The work of American writer Benjamin Whitmer . “I'm burning all my notes, because I've just sent Oliver Gallmeister the last volume [...] of my trilogy. Oliver Gallmeister takes care of my career, distributes my books in Europe , allows me to devote myself exclusively to writing […] Without him, I would have stopped writing years ago,” writes the writer, author of four novels, all published in France by Gallmeister, under the photograph of his blaze, published on Instagram.

An article by Elise Lépine in Le Point, link here.

A profile in Amnesty International’s La Chronique in their February 2023 issue.

As the mid-term elections approach in the United States, La Croix gives voice to contemporary American writers. For Benjamin Whitmer, who has established himself in four books as a master of the noir novel, there is a direct link between crime and inequality.

An interview by François d'Alançon in La Croix, link here.

My best friend, Paul Schenck, was murdered by the police. The short version is that he was killed in his small apartment, terrified and alone, surrounded by nearly a hundred police and SWAT officers , in armored vehicles and a helicopter. He'd had a rough day and long struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, and when the local police showed up to investigate a disturbance, they picked a shootout with him.

An interview by Macha Séry in Le Monde, link here.