Australian journalist Trent Dalton's best-selling 2018 novel Boy Swallows Universe is based on his own tough childhood in seedy '80s Brisbane.
He talks to Kim Hill about his love of diving deep, the myth of altogether 'bad' people and his upcoming book Shimmering Skies.
Photo: Russell Shakespeare
In Boy Swallows Universe, Eli Bell shares a lot of Trent's own experiences – including living with a junkie mother and a drug-dealing stepfather (who turned his mum on to heroin).
This man – who Trent calls 'Lyall' in the book – was also a "loving" guy who taught him how to respect his mum and defend himself in the schoolyard, he says.
"That is the worst thing, to deal drugs and put people on that path … but also he's the guy who taught me how to love and taught me to be a decent human being, so do I discard that guy from my love? … I'm 40 years old now and I'm still trying to answer those questions.'
"All of this stuff felt like a curse for me for quite some time when I was a kid to the point where I'd lie about certain things in my life because I was too embarrassed. How ridiculous, right? The minute that you own the curse and talk about it is the minute that the curse will be removed … dive deeper into the thing that makes you comfortable because that will be the place where you find yourself. That's really moving to me."
Photo: Harper Collins Australia
Boy Swallows Universe was written over the course of a year in the few hours Trent was able to carve out after work each day.
"I had all this stuff I jammed down in the bottom of my stomach for, I swear, about 20 years. And then I thought nah, I've gotta get rid of it. And I just put it all in that book."
When he finished writing the book, Trent turned to his wife and said 'what the F have done?'
He then immediately sent it to his mum – now a devoted grandmother with a "steady job" at an insurance company.
Trent says he needed to find out if there was anything in the book that made his mother uncomfortable before he showed anyone else.
"I said 'I'm sorry you didn't raise a carpenter, I could have built you a cupboard but you raised a writer who feels the need to write about things from the 1980s."
His mum called him 24 hours later.
"She goes 'Trent, I read it overnight, I couldn't sleep, I kept on reading. It's beautiful and it's bigger than us … she said 'go for it, bloody go for it'.
"I don't want to sound too much of a douche but I'm really proud of it ... The worry and all that sickness came back which might have been a good thing because it just powers you and it puts this electricity in you.
"I was put on this earth to write that book, have no doubt. That was the story I'm here to tell but am I here to tell any more?"
After writing his second novel – Shimmering Skies which comes out in June – Trent says the answer is yes.
The new book came about after a request from his ten-year-old daughter.
"She said 'you wrote about two beautiful boys [Eli and his brother] in Boy Swallows Universe. Why don't you write about two beautiful girls?"
Shimmering Skies – which is set during the bombing of Darwin in WWII – is a sequel to Boy Swallows Universe only an emotional level, Trent says.
"Shimmering Skies is basically if Eli Bell grew up and he sat down at his desk and tried to write a novel. The things that he's writing about are the legacy of emotions and the things he experienced as a kid – and he's trying to work them out through this fantastical novel."
Boy Swallows Universe is now being made into a six-part TV series by Australian actor and filmmaker Joel Edgerton.
"He phones up and he's like 'do you want to do coffee?' And I get all nervous."
Because of a bidding war for the TV rights to Boy Swallows Universe, Trent's agents told him to play it cool when he met Edgerton in Sydney.
No easy task, he says.
"He gets out his phone and he shows me... 'sky blue Holden Kingswood, that was the car I had as a kid'. That's the car Eli Bell has ... He goes 'look at my favourite rugby league player – Ray Price from the Parramatta Eels [the same as Eli].
"By the end, I'm in love with this guy so much I just go... 'it's yours, mate, it's yours, Joel.
"Next thing these Hollywood heavies are coming up to my city, Brisbane, and I'm driving them around these housing commission suburbs and they're doing that little thing like making their fingers into a camera viewfinder and going 'yeah, this is going to shoot beautifully'... it's just so surreal.'
Three days a week, Trent still works as a newspaper journalist.
"I really do think the journo thing leads into the other stuff, I'm pretty certain of it. I think I need to keep that there 'cause it keeps it all real … I think I'll be doing it for some time yet, yeah."
