In new book, Lisa Moore locks herself inside the mind of a man who endured years of abuse

A prolific Newfoundland fiction writer has turned to real-life horror in her latest book. It'sa collaboration with a man who spent four years trapped in a youth detention centre, enduring abuse that changed the course of his life.

Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen, who has spent decades vocalizing the trauma he suffered in the Whitbourne Boys' Home in the 1970s, releasedInvisible Prisons: Jack Whalen's Tireless Fight for Justice earlier this week.

It's Moore's first work of non-fiction. To write it, she spent two years immersed in Whalen's past, speaking to surviving family members about the house he grew up in and poring over documents about the notorious boys' home.

Moore says she focused intently on Whalen's mother, Alice.

"I felt like I could, for instance, be inside that woman's head,well enough to know or describe what it might feel like in the middle of the night when you wake up and realize that your child is not in the bedroom across the hall anymore and that you have no way to get them back," said Moore.

In recent years,Whalenchallenged the Newfoundland and Labrador government to change its statute of limitations on child abuse lawsuits. In May, the province passed a billthat removes time limits for victims of childhood abuse including assault, battery and unlawful confinement so they couldlaunch civil suits.

Dozens of other survivors of the Whitbourne Boys' Home won a lawsuit in 2022 due to sexual abuse by guards.

Whalenwasn't sexually abused, but he estimates that beginning at age 13,he spent more than 700 days in solitary confinement while in custody at the institution. He says he wasn't allowed to go to school, read books or watch TV. He was allowed to leave the cell only to shower three times a week and to use the washroom.

"I found it terrifying to really imagine what it would be like to be a child locked in a room with no way of knowing how much time was passing, with no stimulation, no books, no television, no natural sunlight," Moore said."Nothing. No conversation. I found that absolutely terrifying."

WATCH | Author Lisa Moore on her first non-fiction book an abusive survivor:

Abuse survivor Jack Whalen is telling his story with the help of author Lisa Moore

24 days ago

Duration 3:30

Invisible Prisons: Jack Whalens Tireless Fight for Justice details the more than two years Whalen spent in solitary confinement and abuse when he was at the Whitbourne Boys Home in the 1970s. Author Lisa Moore spoke to the CBCs Carolyn Stokes about the process of working alongside Whalen to tell his harrowing experience as a book.

Moore says she struggled to capture that horror, and regularly had to fight the urge to impart a hopeful or optimistic sheen toWhalen's experience.

"I think I was afraid of it," Moore said. "I was leaning toward the sense of joy that Jack sometimes felt when he broke out and was running with all his might away from that place. I was leaning toward the love in his family."

Some parts of Whalen's life in Whitbourne almost read like fiction, she adds, describing a scene in the book where Whalen is hiding from police in the remnants of an old ship, and wakes up covered in a sea of writhing rats.

"I could feel a sense of integrity and authenticity, and just the power of the story he was telling," she said of her decision to work together.

"There is a kind of power in bearing witness, like a kind of redemption that comes with telling stories, especially stories that are invisible a lot of the time."

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