CHRISTIAN WHITE is an Australian screenwriter and author of bestselling novels The Nowhere Child, The Wife and the Widow and Wild Place.

His latest novel, The Ledge, is a twisty thriller that tells the story of a group of teenage boys and the long-held secret that they’ve carried into adulthood. AKINA HANSEN writes.

Read our book review of The Ledge by Christian White

I think it would be fair to say that for many of us our teenage years are some of our most challenging. Don’t get me wrong, the demands of a nine-to-five, juggling children and mortgage repayments are no easy feat, but the emotional obstacles you’re faced with when navigating the transition from childhood into adulthood is unlike anything you’ll experience again.

Just look at some of the best coming of age stories for reference: Stand By Me, The Catcher in the Rye and It. They all explore those daunting first feelings of love, loss and friendship – and highlight that universal struggle of figuring out who you are and where you fit in.

These stories particularly shaped and left a mark on prolific crime writer Christian White, the bestselling author of The Nowhere Child, The Wife and the Widow, and Wild Place.

‘I think being a teenager is one of the hardest things anyone has to do. And I think people feel it to varying degrees, but I think for me, it was a really tough time because suddenly there was a year there where I was just a real jerk to my parents, and I didn’t really know why,’ Christian tells me.

His latest thriller, The Ledge, is a love letter to those stories and the passage of youth. It’s also possibly his most personal yet. Christian began developing the idea for his story in late 2022 when he started thinking about his high school friends. People he was once inseparable from, but who he now had no contact with. Where were they now? What were they up to?

The Ledge draws on these questions to tell a story of four friends whose lives are forever altered after a harrowing event in their youth. Sworn to secrecy, they each carry this event with them into adulthood, and we see how this ultimately impacts them and tests their bond.

‘I started to get interested in what these kids are going to end up like. So, I started to just build their worlds and think about how a horrific event in your childhood – I imagine it as a stone in a pond – how those ripples would move through life and how it would have affected me.’

Christian takes us back to 1999, drawing on his own personal memories and experiences of his youth to shape his characters Aaron, Justin, Leeson and Chen who are your typical quirky teens. We’re introduced to them as a group of boys who aren’t unpopular but who also aren’t immune to the antics of their school bully, Dave, and his buddies.

As an adolescent Christian dyed his hair and wore clothes that didn’t fit the mould. And like most kids that are different, the ways he chose to express himself made him a target for bullying.

‘Masculinity and the concept have sort of changed since then. To show any kind of weakness or any kind of difference would make you a target.

‘I definitely drew on a lot of those experiences of being bullied, but also what it was like to be a guy and what you’re expected to feel and how you’re expected to react to certain things. You did just kind of have to be tough. And to be honest with you, I spent a lot of my life resisting that, but parts of me are drawn back to that.’

In The Ledge Christian delves into the impacts of placing harmful social expectations on young boys. For best friends Aaron and Justin, both boys feel abandoned by their absent fathers and in turn this pressure to ‘man up’ and be self-reliant is keenly felt by them.

‘It wasn’t until I became a father that I knew just how great a father I have and how much of an impact it has on your life. When you have a kid, you start to think a lot about being a role model and you can’t just tell your kid, “Oh mobile phones are bad.” You’ve got to put your own mobile phone away. It’s those sorts of things.

‘I think that having a positive male figure in a young boy’s life is so important. And the absence of that – which both Justin and Aaron have – has the opposite effect, it’s really negative. I think boys without that can feel abandoned, but also adrift, unsure of how they’re supposed to exist. So, I think for me, it was a big “what if” exercise. What if I had a terrible father or what if my father was gone? What effects might that have had on your life?’

I still wanted to play with toys, but I knew you weren’t allowed to play with toys.

Cracks start to show when 16-year-old Aaron goes missing in the small, fictionalised town of West Haven in Victoria, which is loosely based on the Beechworth and Wodonga area. When the three friends and Aaron’s sister, Benita, discover his secret mobile phone it leads them to a windy, narrow trail in the West Haven State Forest.

Despite the heaviness of the situation, we see how committed they are to finding Aaron, regardless of what that outcome might be.

‘As a teenager specifically, there’s this weird point where your friends almost become more important to you. Their opinions and their love become as important as your family.

‘I remember really clearly this time where I guess I was 12 or 13 years of age, I still wanted to play with toys, but I knew you weren’t allowed to play with toys. That was this huge change. And I remember I started to think like, “My parents don’t know everything. They’re not the centre of my world.” I remember how much importance I put on my friends at that time.’

It’s within this space that The Ledge really takes off. Weaving between the past and present, we learn that over two decades later the friends are no longer as tightly knit as they once were. When human remains are found in that same forest however, they are once again reunited in West Haven.

‘So much of what I do is because I try to tell stories about really ordinary people. I always think, “What would I do in this situation?”

‘A person can really compromise themselves, their morality and their entire life in service to someone else that they love. And that’s loyalty. I guess I really learned that that’s both wonderful and terrifying at the same time. How much of yourself should you give in service of someone else’s safety and wellbeing?’

Set in the late ’90s, The Ledge is a twisty and gripping thriller that’s brimming with nostalgia. Kids are riding their bicycles and exploring the outdoors with no social media or iPhones to divert their attention. And while there’s something incredibly freeing about that era, we’re also reminded of the social burdens and perils of that time.

While it’s been a few years between The Ledge and the publication of his last novel, Wild Place, fans will be glad to know that Christian is already onto his next story.

‘I became a dad and I wrote a show and a couple of films. So, I was busy with work and life, but I don’t want to wait so long until the next book because I love it. It’s my love, my joy. So, hopefully there won’t be that gap like there is between Wild Place and The Ledge.

‘Not all writers love the act of writing. For some people it’s very painful. For me, the act of sitting down and writing is such a joy and it’s something I’ve always done, long before I got paid for it.’ •

Released 24 September 2024