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Car Crash book cover
Car Crash
A Memoir
2021
First Published
4.29
Average Rating
224
Number of Pages

What is it like to survive a crash that kills your best friends, and how do you move on? From an exceptional debut writer comes a stunning memoir about grief, perseverance and courage. At seventeen, Lech Blaine walked away unscratched from a car crash that killed three of his friends and left two in comas. On a May night in 2009, seven boys in Toowoomba, Queensland, piled into a car. They never arrived at their destination. The driver made a routine error, leading to a head-on collision. In the aftermath, rumours about speed and drink-driving erupted. There was intense scrutiny from the media and police. Lech used alcohol to numb his grief and social media to show stoicism, while secretly spiralling towards depression and disgrace. This is a riveting account of family, friendship, grief and love after tragedy. In a country where class and sport dominate, and car crashes compete with floods and pandemics for headlines, our connection with others is what propels us on. Heartbreaking and darkly hilarious, Car Crash is a story for our times.

Avg Rating
4.29
Number of Ratings
1,234
5 STARS
48%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
13%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Lech Blaine
Lech Blaine
Author · 3 books
Lech Blaine is a writer from Toowoomba, Queensland. His work appears in The Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, The Guardian and The Monthly, among others. His work has been nominated for several prizes and he was an inaugural recipient of a Griffith Review Queensland Writers Fellowship.
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