Lech Blaine was just seventeen when he was in a crash that killed his best friends and changed his life. On an evening in 2009, seven teenage boys piled into a car to go to a party. They never arrived. The driver, who was not drunk or high, made a routine error and then overcorrected. The vehicle flew off the road. One passenger died on impact. Others were flung from the car. Lech walked away uninjured. In the aftermath, two more died in hospital and one was left disabled, in an incident that convulsed their rural community. Crippled by guilt, Lech turned to social media, cultivating a persona as the ultimate 'grateful survivor'. Over time, he spiralled into risk-taking and depression. His public bravado fell away as he tried to accept how an accident, one wretched error of youth and inexperience, had changed the trajectory of so many lives. How do we grieve in an age of social media? How does tragedy shape a community? And how does a boy on the cusp of manhood develop a sense of self when his world has exploded?

Contents: The bystander -- The graduate -- The survivor.

Short list National Biography Award 2022