Adelaide author Warren Rankine will attend Collins Booksellers in Shepparton for an in-depth conversation about his debut memoir.
Photo by
Contributed
Warren Rankine has two accounts of his early life: his own memory and the roughly 500-page state welfare file that recorded it.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
The Adelaide author will bring both to Collins Booksellers in Shepparton on Wednesday, November 4 from 6pm.
The evening will include an in-depth conversation with Chloe Warburton to discuss his debut memoir Fifteen Feet Tall: From Abandonment to Belonging, where he puts the two accounts side by side.
There will also be an opportunity for a Q&A and the chance for attendees to get their copies of the book signed.
Mr Rankine, a Ngarrindjeri man, was two years old when he was placed in an orphanage.
He grew up in foster homes in Adelaide’s western suburbs and later founded an award-winning building company.
Shepparton readers have already shown strong interest in the book.
Collins stores across regional Victoria have stocked it, with Mr Rankine saying sales had been good locally.
“It’s actually sold really well in both Shepparton and Tatura,” he said.
“There’s been a reasonably steady flow of book sales in both.”
Mr Rankine wrote the manuscript entirely from memory, deliberately avoiding looking into his 500-page state welfare file until it was finished 10 years later.
He then only peeked inside to fact-check the draft against the file, including 40 extracts inside the front cover.
“It gives people a very unique parallel narrative,” he said.
The extracts allow readers to compare the institutionalised perspective versus his own record of events.
He first obtained the files at 25 but found them confronting, putting them away for almost 30 years.
Writing the book, he said was “really challenging and traumatic”.
Sharing it, however, has been different.
“What has been cathartic is taking it to people and seeing the reactions of people who have lived similar experience,” he said.
The book had since drawn interest from social welfare groups, psychologists and educators.
Mr Rankine said it was as much about resilience as it was about heritage.
“My Aboriginality is the reason my life pivoted the way it did at such a young age,” he said.
“But my story is just as much about resilience, determination and hope as it is about my Aboriginality.”
When asked what he would say to the two-year-old boy at the start of the book, his answer was simple: keep going.
For all its hard subject matter, a chapter on his teenage years, ‘Front Row Seats and Circus Acts’, gives its name to his next release, a collection of 20 humorous true stories from his travel.
His next release is due in March 2027.
Mr Rankine’s visit to Shepparton is on his way to the Sydney Book Fair on November 7 and 8.
Fifteen Feet Tall retails from $39.95 and is available at Collins Booksellers Shepparton or online via fifteenfeettall.com.
Fifteen Feet Tall: From Abandonment to Belonging.
Photo by
Contributed
13°C