Description
Product description
About the Author
Trent Dalton is the author of Boy Swallows Universe (HarperCollins, 2018), the critically acclaimed international and national bestseller and winner of the 2019 Indie Book of the Year Award, the MUD Literary Prize, and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and People’s Choice Award at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. At the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards, the novel won a record four awards, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award. Boy Swallows Universe has been published across thirty-four territories, and the 2021 stage show was a record-breaking success for Queensland Theatre. His second novel, All Our Shimmering Skies (HarperCollins, 2020), was a number-one national bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2021 ABIA Awards. His non-fiction book Love Stories (HarperCollins, 2021) was also a number-one Australian bestseller and the winner of the 2022 Indie Book of the Year Award. Trent is also a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a four-time winner of a Kennedy Award for Excellence in NSW Journalism and a four-time winner of the national News Awards Features Journalist of the Year.
From the Publisher
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Neal Ames –
If I didn’t love Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet so much Boy Swallows Universe would now be my most special book ever. Is it boring of me to say that the character construction was amazing. And that is the most important component of any great story, the way that the characters are built on, constructed, so that their journey becomes your journey, our journey. I felt that I was along for the ride, and what a ride. The characters can be whimsical, and sometimes unbelievable, but that just makes the journey even more enjoyable. This really is a work of art. Having spent so many years living in South-east Queensland I can relate to most of the places, but you don’t need to have local knowledge, to really love the story. Boy Swallows Universe just made it into my top six books of all time, and the five above it are all Russian writers from the 1800’s
Jade St Clair Scatterbooker –
Boy Swallows Universe is the debut Australian best seller and multi award winner of 2018. I’m not usually a fan of stickers on book covers, but that certainly is an impressive number of awards there!Set in the suburbs of Brisbane in 1985, Eli Bell is struggling to grow up in the midst of a very complicated life. His mum is a junkie, his step-father is a heroin dealer, his brother is mute, his absent dad is an alcoholic, his best friend is a notorious criminal, and his pen pal is the ex sergeant at arms of the Rebels motorcycle club.All of a sudden, tragedy strikes, and Eli’s life becomes a lot more complicated. He needs all the help he can get from his brother, his friends, his father who has suddenly landed in his life, and an attractive young (but still far too old for Eli) journalist called Caitlin Spies.Boy Swallows Universe is a heartbreaking, but triumphant, Australian novel that reveals the true horrors lurking underneath the surface of most suburbs, I suspect. I’m still reeling from the wild ride of the last few chapters and Dalton shines through as a simply brilliant storyteller. If you are in the middle of reading this book and are perhaps thinking that there is a bit too much description and it jumps around a bit too much, just wait til the end where all will be revealed.5/5 stars!
Laurie JJ –
I’d skimmed over this book for months, the cover bright and colourful did not strike me as something I would normally pick up. So yes this has taught me once again that sort of judgement is foolish, something I would have thought the years would already have taught me.This is both a coming of age story and a love story. It is a tale of old souls in young bodies, friends in strange places and the wonderful encompassing embrace of family in tough circumstances and adversity. But more than that it is a wonderful story of place and time, of loyalty and the wonder in a child’s eyes. It is evocative and whimsical and like some of my favourite books over the years it triggers my own memories of childhood, tugging at the little things uncovering stuff I haven’t thought about for years.So if you’ve ever truly loved your family despite all of their flaws, if you’ve found and lost friends all when least expected, and if you’ve ever just thought that maybe it doesn’t matter if there is a purpose to life, that sometimes it’s just as important to let things unfold because there is always something good around the corner, then pick this one up and just remember.
Darice11 –
I thought the book was rather complicated to start with. It made me think to hard in the beginning and I thought about putting it down, but like a play in old english it eventually flowed as normal and the understanding of the narrative became alive.As I moved to Brisbane in the early 81’s as a teenager I can related to a lot if not all of the references and locations having driven delivery trucks and taxi’s all over every part of the city in that decade. I lived a few blocks from Bogga road and this story really delivers on all that was at that time if you really lived in the city. Drugs, gambling and corruption were abundant. Trent delivers on a usual families growth during the period that brings it all alive and stirs the imagination and thoughts.
Ingrid –
A rollicking good read full of nostalgic moments of living in brisbane. Poetry in the writing as well as suspenseful. My two favourite books are now this and zig zag street by Nick earls. We are proud of these brisbane based authors