Denise Young - author profile

Book: The Last Ride

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Price: $22.95

Uncommon outlaw

The outlaw is a curious figure in Australian culture. Easy to love for his defiance and courage, he is also difficult to place and painful to know. Resourceful and rebellious, the man on the run from the law is heavily romanticised, just look at the Australian love affair with Ned Kelly for proof. But what would it really be like to be an outlaw, who must also be an outcast, hovering threateningly at the fringes of society, wavering just off the line of sight, slipping from our social conscience like a snake slivering from the hands of its captor?

It’s a subject tackled with great tact by Australian writer Denise Young in her first novel The Last Ride. The book offers a unique perspective on what it is like to be caught up with a criminal escaping from the law told from the point of view of a ten year old boy.

Inspired by a news story about a father and son on the run, Young has crafted heartbreakingly real characters and a dramatic story that involves extraordinary circumstances but also says a lot about an ordinary father and son relationship.

“I don’t think I started with a message,” Young says. “I just felt like I was drawn to the story and felt a great love for the two main characters, and all the characters in it. I felt connected to them and I wanted to take them through this journey and I wanted them to have hope for this child. I suppose the only message I can say is to look at the outsiders not as outsiders but maybe sometimes as people you could know. I’m not a bleeding heart liberal but I do feel that under the skin we’re all pretty similar.”

The ten year old boy is Chook, and his father Kev is an unpredictable, violent and ultimately contradictory man who lives defiantly outside the law and society. Chook’s voice is fresh and has presence, coupled with the swift pace it makes for a fast and compelling read.

The prose is remarkably assured and while Young is unassumingly modest, friendly and open, she is uncomfortable speaking about herself. She will have to get used to the limelight as the book received glowing reviews at its Sydney Writers Festival launch in May. The Last Ride has been optioned for film and Melbourne screenwriter Mac Gudgeon is developing the script with Young’s blessing.

The Last Ride took Young three years to complete and while there was “a lot of hanging in there”, she also admits the journey towards success has been relatively smooth sailing. “I feel like I’ve had the green light all the way. It’s almost too good to be true.”

Now based in Sydney, Young has lived in Perth and New Zealand, where she held a vast array of jobs before beginning her writing career. She has worked as an actor and even starred in a short film in New Zealand with a then unknown Sam Neill and directed theatre groups. She earned an honours degree in English and has lectured in theatre at the University of NSW and Curtin University in Perth.

The catalyst in her transition to becoming an author came in 2002 when she submitted a proposal to the Varuna Awards for Manuscript Development, a program run by Harper Collins in conjunction with the Varuna Writers’ House. The prize is an offer to spend ten days workshopping with a Harper Collins editor at the Varuna Writer’s House in the Blue Mountains. Young was selected as one of five winners and received intensive editorial support and mentoring by established writers Tegan Bennett and Charlotte Wood.

“I got lots of ideas and help with all kinds of things. It was the encouragement more than anything else and the words just poured out of me,” Young says.

Denise also drew on some unique experiences that gave her a special insight into the minds of prisoners and outlaws. In the eighties she worked as a prison educator in Fremantle Prison where she taught literacy and conducted drama workshops. “I know when I first went into Fremantle I was terrified,” she says. “It was all Victorian stone, there were keys in ancient doors and I thought, ‘Oh god – what are they going to be like?’ ”

Unfailingly human, it turned out.

“Ï became quite fond of many of the people I met in there and I have never forgotten them. “I kept in touch with some people for years that I met in there, though not that many of them had very good outcomes. It was an absolutely fascinating experience. I did it for about 12 months but I just couldn’t get over the natural ability of some of the people in there. They just had no opportunities, rotten families, the usual stories.”

The Last Ride isn’t a prison novel but it explores what goes on in the inside, shedding light on the cycles of loving and hurting that keep families bonded together even in situations of violence and crime. It is an unusual perspective when you consider how as a society we are surrounded by a media saturated with crime stories in which both the perpetrators of crime and their victims are strangely dehumanised. The situation is not uniquely Australian, according to Young.

“I think it’s true all over the world,” she says. “Crime stories have never been more popular while criminals have never been less popular. They’re locked away in increasing numbers in the United States. In Australia, it has grown exponentially and we don’t want to know about it.”

Ella Mudie

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