Book review: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
I finished Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. 
 
(Note: I don’t review with a star rating. Those are useful, but working them out doesn’t come naturally to me.  I review according to what I thought, or how I felt, or what stood out for me.)
  
Was it an interesting read? Yes.
In the end, did I like it? Yes.
Did I love it? Most of it, yes.
Did it inspire me? Yes.
 

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton is a debut novel about Eli Bell, the youngest member of a broken and dysfunctional family in Brisbane, Australia in the 1980s. With a drug-addicted mother a drug-dealing stepfather, living in a low to middle class suburb, and an older brother who does not speak, it almost makes sense that twelve year old Eli’s best friend is actually a 70-something year old former criminal and prison escapee named Slim. This story follows the coming-of-age themes in Eli’s life: loss, trauma, love, change and ultimately growth. Thoughtful, poignant and often deep, this story is written in a style that mirrors young Eli’s thought process; abrupt, ever-changing, but always clear and real. This author seems to write like a person thinks: in short and meaningful snippets that make up the whole. It may come across as an unusual style at first, but this technique works more and more as you read.

This debut novel is semi-autobigraphical fiction – meaning the story has many elements of truth, for example time and place, plus the author’s life experience and personal development, but the plot is fictitious. The story is filled with characters and events that are inspired by reality, though completely made up. This mixture of truth and fiction, and not knowing which is which, actually makes the story better, not worse.

There is an intriguing weirdness that rises in the book. I mean what does ‘Your end is a dead blue wren’ even mean? Why is there a strange voice on a telephone in a hidden room, and how does this relate to a story that otherwise feels so real and authentic? I will leave you to find the answers to these questions yourself.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
 A quintessentially Australian story, this book takes you to Brisbane in Queensland, a city you won’t know this much about unless you have been there, but it does not pull back from naming locations and describing proximities – even though 99% of the world’s readers don’t need these. That commitment to place helps take this from a mainstream, generic coming-of-age tale to a real, warts-and-all depiction of growing up a world that is undoubtedly real. It doesn’t matter that the story is set in a decade long past. In that sense, it almost feels like a love letter to a moment in time. 
Personally, I like to look up a place, or a food that is unfamiliar; to me this means a story is about something real. It feels like the story is something of value to both the author and the reader, rather than just written, edited and then over-simplified into easily digestible content.
 
The love story in these pages is refreshingly original. It does not follow the common boy-meets-girl formula, is spread out over time, and often feels like it is hiding somewhere in the story…. To say any more would be spoiling the book. 
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
At times the author seems to use techniques that I find to be a bit out of place, or perhaps feel influenced from elsewhere. 
For example there is an odd passage where Eli’s biological father, in a moment of clarity, lays out a complex theoretical scenario to his son explaining why he shouldn’t feed a bird and how this affects both the animal and human ecosystem. (This monologue reminded me of the genius Will in the film Good Will Hunting.) Being an avid reader – drinking and reading is all Dad does really – it might make sense that a self-educated man thinks this way. But the delivery of this monologue, when he says so little to his son in other scenes, seems to come out of nowhere.

 

Likewise, the story of Eli’s brother August who does not speak after a traumatic experience with water as a child, felt very reminiscent of the character Quick Lamb in Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet. But only for a moment, as this story then goes in a different direction.
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Things I liked a lot:
The characters in this family are vivid and believable, serving as anchors to the stranger events that take place. There are a few characters that stay with you a bit longer than the others:
Eli’s Mum – her story is a mixture of addiction, love, victimhood, and at other times, invisibility. But she is never condemned by Eli, despite all her errors.
Eli’s babysitter and best friend Slim Halliday – a grandfather figure in the form of a notorious convict: how can you not remember a character like that?
Eli’s brother August – no spoilers, but this character gives you more to think about than you expect as the story progresses.  
 
Things I didn’t quite like:
The characters that Eli comes into contact with (his family, his love interest, even his future employer) are 3D, even 4D; nuanced and developing over time, drawing you in and giving you reason to care. But the villains of the story such as drug kingpin Tytus Bro and henchman Iwan Krol are one dimensional; dark, evil and ultimately forgettable. Perhaps this is intentional as Eli only sees them as such. But the question of what makes bad people choose to be bad is raised early as if it is going to be a central theme of this book, thought it is not explored for all key characters. 

There is a scene in the middle of the book where two suburban drug gangs face off. This whole chapter does little for the plot although the discovery that Eli’s childhood schoolmate Darren Dang has taken over his mother’s drug business works well – we realise that Eli could have gone the same way. But the scene of the battle between the gangs feels like unnecessary and overblown, and Eli’s part in it makes little sense. This just feels out of character. Or maybe I missed the deeper meaning here.
 
The ending didn’t satisfy, but I always accept that every author has a place they want to go and every right to go there. 
The way the story wrapped up felt like it was just too big, too dramatic, too much like a thriller (which this book isn’t). Building towards revelation or acceptance, or overcoming of adversity is where I felt the story might go. It gets to all these things, so I am happy. But there is also a ‘climactic’ ending that doesn’t quite fit the story. I found myself reading it fast to get through it. A little disappointing, but the author writes what the author believes in and we can only try to go on this journey with them!

Overall, Boy Swallows Universe is a great book. 
Full of great writing, great characters and set in a great location that makes it all feel worth it. 
I highly recommend it.

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