Car Crash

“A story of carnage and life-long consequences. A brave and unsettling account.” —Tim Winton, author of Dirt Music, Breath and Cloudstreet

After a car crash kills three of his friends, but leaves him unscathed, Lech Blain struggles to survive his trauma, grief, and the impulse to mask his feelings on social media in this powerful memoir about recovering from a tragic accident.

On a May night in 2009, seven boys piled into one car. They never arrived at their destination. The driver made a routine error, leading to a head-on collision. Three of the passengers were killed and two left in comas, but seventeen-year-old Lech Blaine walked away unscathed.

In the aftermath, rumours about drunk driving erupted in Lech’s small town. There was intense scrutiny from the media and police. Lech used alcohol to numb his trauma and social media to show the male stoicism he had grown up with, all while secretly spiraling towards depression and shame.

This is a riveting account of family, friendship, grief, and love after tragedy. In a tight-knit community where class and sport dominate, and in a media landscape where car crashes compete with floods and pandemics for headlines, Lech shows that our connection with others is what propels us on. Heartbreaking and darkly hilarious, Car Crash is a story for our times.

Lech Blaine is a writer originally from Toowoomba, Australia. In 2009, he survived a fatal head-on collision that killed three of his friends. Lech’s work has been published widely, including in the Guardian, the Monthly, Best Australian Essays, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, and the Griffith Review. He lives in Sydney.