Swallowing the Universe with Trent Dalton

WRITTEN BY TOM LOUDON

When Boy Swallows Universe was published in 2018, its author, Trent Dalton, was known for the flowery prose of his feature articles. Well regarded in the world of journalism, his debut novel put him in another spotlight entirely. One year — and 140,000 sales — later Dalton had four Australian Book Industry awards, a second novel on the way, and glowing reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post. So, it was a surprise when the QUT Literary Salon announced Dalton as a guest speaker last May.

The teenage protagonist of Boy Swallows Universe, Eli Bell, lives a remarkable life - one soon to be immortalised in a sold-out stage adaptation by Queensland Theatre, and a small-screen adaptation headed by Joel Edgerton. In about 450-pages Eli navigates domestic violence, an international drug syndicate, and an infatuation with an older woman. But perhaps the most remarkable part of his life is the fact that it is based on Dalton’s.

“When I was in grade six my teacher told my dad at a parent teacher night that she was convinced I was going to become the leader of an outlaw motorcycle gang,” Dalton later tells me, when after I ask how his life has deviated from his expectations.

“It’s certainly turned out a lot different.”

I’d been to a Lit Salon before and was familiar with the format; six readers, six pieces, a small crowd. On this particular night it was seven readers, seven pieces, and a healthier audience. Among the art students and introverts, Dalton’s straightforward style and labrador energy stood out. As his desire to personally meet everyone in attendance became more obvious, this energy became infectious. When I finally caught him, he was on his way out. But there was plenty more of Dalton to go around.

“Oh Tom! Of course,” he says like he’s known

me for years. When I ask if I could get in touch with him for an interview, he loudly shouts his personal email address and one of my coworkers commits it to memory.

When I do email him, his auto-reply defers me to his publicist at HarperCollins, who insists that “Trent is on a deadline” and “not doing any media commitments”. Half an hour later, Trent replies to my original email with his personal phone number, and asks me to text him any questions.

Dalton doesn’t feel like he needs to be managed.

“It’s from my twenty years as a journo. It’s that idea that if you can’t sit down at the desk and write for eight hours as a journalist you lose your job. And then the mortgage doesn’t get paid and your kids don’t go to school. These are very powerful motivations and I try to look at any fiction writing I do in exactly the same way. So, I usually start at about eight o’clock and I’ll go right to twelve. Eight to twelve are my best writing hours — I love those writing hours. I don’t really need any convincing or any external encouragement to do it because I feel like I’m the luckiest bastard on earth and I try to recognise that every day.”

Dalton had come to the Lit Salon as a QUT alum and a Brisbane native. When I ask him about Brisbane writing specifically, the event is still firmly in his mind. “I just had the pleasure recently of going ... to see the incredible creative writing students at QUT do an open mic storytelling night where they read stories about Brisbane from their own lives, and it was the most inspiring thing I think I’ve seen in a year and some of the most incredible stuff I’ve heard come out the mouths of young writers.” “I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for those young writers I saw.”

“David Malouf, massive inspiration. Matt Condon, who’s a dear friend of mine, his work, particularly on Brisbane crime has been hugely influential. Kris Olsson — who was actually my QUT creative writing tutor — she was deeply influential in the fact that she got me my first writing job and that I wouldn’t be possibly alive without her.”

He talks about writing from his life, and I glean a little more of the real-life story of Eli Bell. Half of Boy Swallows was “too close to home”, and Dalton came close to losing control. But he stresses that our role as writers is to speak with our own voices.

“Whether we let people know that we’re writing close to home or not is a different story.

“And for me doing that was extremely, deeply cathartic, and it was that or drinking straight Burbon every Wednesday night. For me writing a 100,000-word novel is much healthier than that. I think it’s important for us to mine the things that are troubling us. And I think I’ll be digging down into that quarry of emotion for the rest of my life, because just because I wrote some of that stuff in Boy Swallows Universe doesn’t mean I’ve sorted it all out and I look forward to processing that in the future.”

“Not to sound like a Bruce Springsteen song or anything but when I was growing up ... you don’t think of anything like what has happened to me as possible or for you, because there’s this invisible wall keeping you away from that and that’s called the outer suburbs of Brisbane. If you don’t know what’s beyond that invisible wall you don’t know that certain things exist.”

“That’s not just me being writerly or anything that’s just a fact. I thought for all money I was headed for the G James Glass and Aluminium factory on Kingsford Smith Drive because that’s where a lot of my mates went to work and that’s a good life and it pays well and you can buy a nice house in Bracken Ridge with a job like that and I was ready to go down that road. And I reckon I would have been happy enough. But I’m just so glad I saw some other things and I got to exactly where I think I belong.”

Underneath Dalton’s approachable, energetic exterior is a complicated person, characterised only in part by past trauma. Dalton has never stopped learning and has never lost his enthusiasm for life, which is — if anything — his biggest secret.

“In life and in writing – be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is the most underrated human emotion,” Dalton implores.

“I’m talking about the fricken way you get out of the bed ... I’m talking about the way you treat your friends and your relationships and the way you listen to music and the way you look at birds flying in the sky and the way you talk to your mum on the phone. But particularly the way you approach your writing. Because what comes from enthusiasm is curiosity, and what comes from curiosity are answers. All the answers come when you’re enthusiastic.”

“[I think that’s been] the thing that’s gotten me where I am today.”

But where he is today is not Dalton’s final destination, as he continues to grow up every day. “Be careful not to lose yourself in your own fricken head. When you meet the love of your life and you’re in the kitchen cooking dinner and they’re talking to you about the important things that are in their head, don’t be in your head thinking about your fricken story! Make sure you listen to them and you open up to them and you remember that there’s a whole wide world out there that exists beyond your brain and your own little story bubble.”

“I’m actively learning those things as we speak.”

Read the full transcript of our interview with Trent Dalton on our site, including his thoughts on QUT’s young writers, his secret song lyrics, and his advice for young and emerging writers.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF OUR INTERVIEW

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TRENT DALTON’S UPCOMING WORK HERE