By Brendan Rees
MORNINGTON Peninsula-based screenwriter and crime author Christian White is excited to launch his new book, with events to be held at Frankston Library and Farrells Bookshop in Mornington. The award-winning thriller writer is back with his fourth book, The Ledge, which hit bookshelves on 24 September.
Building on his reputation as the master of the twist, White’s latest offering is a coming-of-age story about a group of childhood friends, a dead body, domestic abuse, and loyalty. “Writing this felt much more personal than writing my other books. The Ledge is about a weird teenager which I was and a 40-something author which I am,” said White. White, who was behind one of Australia’s best-selling debuts novels, The Nowhere Child in 2018, drew on his personal memories as a teenager and his life today as a father for inspiration.
“I started to just think about my own friends because it’s about these teenage boys in the 90s and that’s exactly what I was,” he told The News. “I had this really close-knit group of friends as well and for a while, they were everything to me. I felt like I couldn’t survive without them and now I just don’t see them anymore and I sort of started to think about that and about how tragic that is.”
The book follows a group of old childhood friends who must reconnect 20 years later when human remains are found below a ledge where they used to hang out. A long-held secret is to be uncovered. White said he wanted to write a coming-of-age story, or as he put it, a “love letter” to all the movies and books that shaped him as a teenager: Lord of the Flies, It, Stand by Me and The Goonies. He said he was truly grateful to live his dream as an author – a feat achieved after having worked 17 years in “ridiculous jobs” including as golf buggy driver, a call operator, a liquor shop assistant, a fruit picker, and even editing videos in the adult film industry.
Among his duties as a busy dad and writing novels, White is also a screenwriter and producer, writing for Hollywood in his home on the Mornington Peninsula. He added that his dad played an influential part of his writing and that “having a male role model like him formed so much of the man I am – something I didn’t realise until having a kid of my own”. “What if he hadn’t been around? The Ledge might be the answer to that question.” “I’m really excited for people to read it and hear what they think.”
White will be attending Frankston Library on 7 October at 6pm and Mornington’s Farrells Bookshop on 24 October at 6.30pm to discuss the book. Bookings essential through the venues.
First published in the Frankston Times – 1 October 2024