Boy Swallows Universe

Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe, 2018 

Boy Swallows Universe begins with 12-year-old Eli Bell being taught to drive by Arthur ‘Slim’ Halliday, convicted killer and expert prison escapee. Slim looks after Eli and his brother August while their parents are delivering heroin throughout the suburbs of Brisbane. August doesn’t talk but writes words in the air.

This novel grabbed me on the first page and didn’t let me go until it ended on page 474 when Eli is aged 19.

Dalton creates characters we care about, then puts them in harm’s way, producing set pieces of almost unbearable tension. He also sets them impossible challenges, like Eli’s plan to break into Boggo Road Gaol to see his mother on Christmas Day. But it is more than a thriller. Dalton recreates 1980s Brisbane and the ubiquitous police corruption of the time. He brings to life the Courier Mail newsroom, ruled over by an editor who demands three-word headlines (hence the titles of the book and chapters).

We also follow Eli’s investigation of what makes a good person. He tells the Guidance Counsellor that he wants to write about crime. “I’m not interested in crime as much as the people who commit crimes – interested in how they got to the point they got to. I’m interested in that moment when they decided to be bad instead of good.” He speculates: “Maybe all men are bad sometimes and all men are good sometimes. It’s just a matter of timing.”

Dalton is a master of characterisation. The novel is full of characters, each one memorable. From just a few words of speech, we know something of what the person is like. One minor character is Dr Caroline Brennan, who treats Eli when he loses his forefinger. She takes up five pages of the novel, but she made a lasting impression on me.

‘Now hold out your tall man,’ she says, twiddling her middle finger.
I hold out my tall man.
‘Now shove him up your nostril,’ she says.
She sticks her own middle finger in her nostril, raising her eyebrows.
… I follow suit, shove that tall man up my nose.
‘See,’ Dr Brennan says. ‘There ain’t nothing that forefinger could do that tall man can’t, you hear me, young Eli? The tall man can just go deeper.”

Dalton writes dialogue that feels real, and through dialogue, action and humour we learn a lot about the criminal underworld, the illicit drug industry, and life in public housing suburbs. While the novel is laced with violence it is also full of deep love – especially between Eli and his mother, but also between Eli and his brother, stepfather, Slim and, eventually, his real father.

This is a story about a boy swallowing the universe. It is a celebration of accepting the whole of life – the painful and the sublime. A big story beautifully told. Highly recommended.