There are a couple of important lessons to be learned from this self-published memoir. The first is that a toddler consigned to State care eventually can make a success of his life; and the second is that a tougher editing process would have made it more readable.
At 364 pages, and weighing more than 750g, this paperback is no light read. It represents a project started 10 years ago by Rankine, a successful Adelaide businessman.
He is candid about his birth, describing his father as an Aboriginal man who had been displaced very young, his mother as mentally challenged, depending on social welfare and often institutionalised, and other members of his mother’s family as mentally disabled or simple.
When Rankine was only one, his father absconded, and Rankine took that as evidence that ‘he’d looked at the bunch of misfits he’d married into and decided it was all too hard.’
As a memoir, naturally, it is utterly subjective, especially about employment and legal issues he had. The author’s stated aim was to show the differences between what’s known as the Stolen Generation and his displacement because of his maternal family’s shame at having a part-Aboriginal child in its predominantly white family,
Growing up with Adelaide foster families, he provides a bit too much detail about a reckless teenage life, stealing cars, drink-driving and narrowly escaping a life of crime.
The book is prefaced by pages from his Department of Community Welfare file, records he only read as a mature adult.
Now married with two sons, he became a top salesman, leading him to establish a successful business. His final message is that having worked on his own personal growth, he believes in being awake to possibility, and exhorts others to keep going through tribulations.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Warren Rankine is a South Australian man who spent the majority of his life growing up in Adelaide’s western suburbs. As a Ngarrindjeri descendant and with no formal education, he started an award winning brand and building company in 2005. His ongoing success story is one of drive, persistence and continuous improvement in the wake of significant childhood trauma. As a first time author he is no stranger to personal development, growth and achievement through his relentless and energetic approach to his life.
Fifteen Feet Tall is his own account of a journey filled with trauma, tragedy, sadness, failure,resilience, determination, success and self realisation. Others may have put him on a path. Ultimately he forged his own.
Visit Warren Rankine’s website
(4.5/5)
This is not just a memoir — it’s a reckoning told with genuine honesty, and equal measures of rogue and respect. One of its great strengths is how Warren recounts deeply unsettling life experiences without ever slipping into self-pity or melodrama. He captures childhood and adulthood full frontal and at eye level while he tries to make sense of a world fixated on systems with all too rare moments of compassion. The text is vivid and rich with surprises taking the reader through love, pain, warmth, despair, fun, regret, friendship, loyalty and betrayal with uncanny emotional precision. This book will make you think, feel, question, admire, criticise, laugh and cry. It is an important and very readable book about what it means to be human. I highly recommend it.
(4/5)
This memoir is a deeply moving account of resilience, identity, and the quiet strength it takes to build a good life from difficult beginnings. Growing up in Australia under challenging circumstances, the author does not shy away from the realities of hardship, instability, and emotional struggle. These early chapters are written with honesty and restraint, allowing the adversity to speak for itself without sentimentality.
What makes this memoir especially compelling is its balance. While the story is shaped by trauma and loss, it is never defined by them. Instead, the narrative steadily evolves into one of perseverance, personal responsibility, and hope. The author captures the turning points—small decisions, chance encounters, and moments of self-belief—that gradually change the course of his life. These moments feel authentic and earned, rather than inspirational by design.
The Australian setting adds texture and specificity, grounding the story in a social and cultural landscape that will feel familiar to many readers, while still resonating universally. Family, work, and community emerge as central themes, particularly the determination to give the next generation a safer, more loving foundation.
By the memoir’s end, the reader is left with a profound sense of admiration. This is not a story of sudden success or easy triumph, but of steady effort and moral courage. It reminds us that a wonderful life is not something one is given, but something patiently built—often against the odds.