4 minute read
Book review
RICH PATTERN
The Humble Snag
In breaking news, an Australian national icon is under threat. No it’s not Vegemite, Dame Edna or the right to a half day on Christmas Eve. It’s the Bunnings sausage sizzle. By Liz Foster.
In a world of ever-increasing caution, health and safety standards, authorities have fixed their beady eye on the humble snag, specifically the location of the onions in the sandwich construction. Apparently, it’s too easy for the slippery critters to fall off when placed on top of the snags, causing a potential trip hazard. Astute corporate executives came up with a plan. Guidelines are now issued in the Sizzle Welcome Packs outlining a new edict to put the onions beneath the snags. They were at pains to emphasize that the ‘new serving suggestion will not impact the delicious taste or great feeling you get when supporting your local community group.’ No matter that they’re still served in proximity of hundreds of carbon monoxide belching vehicles, all contributing to the aforementioned ‘delicious taste.’ In case snag turners miss it, the new rule is also on display near the barbecue gazebo. Personally I’m relieved to hear someone’s looking out for us, because I’m the world’s worst person when it comes to knowing about food safety standards of any kind. True, I’ve got a few different coloured chopping boards, but I thought that was just aesthetics when I bought them. It was news to me to learn food not requiring cooking should never be cut using the same board - or knife - as raw meat or poultry. How are my sisters and I still alive, I wonder, since our mother only possessed one wooden chopping board that was used for everything? Some people actually wash raw chicken before preparing it. I’ve only just started to rinse rice. I do wash apples, but it turns out that they don’t need washing - just rubbing clean on the knee of your trousers. (Really??) As well as food preparation hygiene, there’s the minefield of food nasties that you should/shouldn’t have at certain times. I found out during my second pregnancy I wasn’t supposed to have ice cream from Mr Whippy (the also-pregnant friend I was with was horrified when I suggested we buy one). I’d also been obliviously eating ham, another no-no, and merrily enjoying all varieties of cheese. Happily we can all sleep easy now Bunnings has tightened up this glaring oversight. Hopefully the Welcome Pack already spells out how to cook and serve said sausages though. It would be a shame to survive the potential perils of a stray onion only to contract salmonella from unwashed tongs. At any rate, I’m pleased the sausage sizzle has endured. Nothing says ‘Bunnings’ like the pervasive smell of meat and onions trapped under a car park roof. In Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton has indeed given the world a “crazy, sad, tragic and beautiful story”. It wouldn’t surprise me if this novel was to become an Australian classic. It belongs on high school and book club reading lists everywhere! Review by Jacqui Serafim.
This inspiring, epic tale of triumph over circumstances is set in 1980s Brisbane suburbia. Even more incredible is the fact that it is a fictional story based on the author’s own life and upbringing. Twelve-year-old Eli Bell and his mute brother, August, are in the dubious care of their junkie mother and drug-dealing stepfather. Their alcoholic father is out of the picture and their strongest moral influence is friend and babysitter ‘Slim’ Halliday, an ex-prisoner jailed for the murder of a taxi-driver. Surrounded by criminals, bullied at school by the children of drug dealers and thugs, and witness to their parents’ loving but incapable form of adulthood, the boys look after each other. They love fiercely and loyally – each other and the flawed adults that surround them. They are smart, resourceful and pure of heart. When Eli’s mother is jailed and his stepfather disappears and the brothers are reunited with their desperately sad father, they are exposed to a whole new world of alcoholism, unemployment and a myriad of related social ills. But despite its desperate circumstances, this is an exceptionally entertaining book: comic and suspenseful, joyful and desperate. The central character, Eli, is a modest, naïve hero constantly asking himself what it takes to be “a good man”. He works desperately to keep his head above water in the swirling currents of his life while he processes the trauma of his early experiences. As the brothers navigate their teenage years together, trying to keep their souls and bodies intact in a dangerous world, we are inspired by their resilience and strength. I was captivated by Eli’s quixotic journey as he navigates his chaotic world - dodging the drug lords, trying to save his family, falling in love and trying to achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a journalist for The Courier Mail. This is a book pulsing with risk and danger but brimming with love and the possibility of redemption. It is a rollicking, often hilarious adventure underpinned by a stark and brutal picture of Brisbane’s underbelly, but uplifted by the novel’s magical realism and poetic language.
A BOOK LOVER’S REVIEW
Boy Swallows Universe
BY TRENT DALTON
Trent Dalton is a staff writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine and former assistant editor of The Courier Mail. This is his first novel, to be published globally and translated into 12 other languages.
