Boy Swallows Universe audiobook

Well, what can I say, but Trent Dalton, you have left me speechless! I've had Boy Swallows Universe on my shelf for several months now, not wanting to pick it up, afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype. It lives up to it, and more!It's the coming of age tale of Eli, growing up in Brisbane's western suburbs, raised by drug dealers. We follow Eli and his brother August, through all the bad things life could throw at them, yet there are a lot of positives in their lives too. Living in Brisbane I'm familiar with many of the locations in this book, and knowing that it is semi-autobiographical, it really comes to life. Totally absorbing, I lost a day reading this book!This book will make you laugh, it will make you cry. It is simply magnificent. Thankyou Trent Dalton!

“The key characters all draw on the people I love most in the world. The most beautiful and complex people I’ve ever known, and I never even had to walk out the door of my house to find them. I just wanted to give the world a story. To turn all these crazy and sad and tragic and beautiful things I’ve seen into a crazy, sad, tragic and beautiful story.” (Trent Dalton from an article by Dalton on why her wrote this book: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/blog... ). I read the above article after I finished this book and read the author’s note about how much of this novel is based on his childhood experiences and the story became so much more meaningful . Knowing this made me love these characters even more, and in spite of a few reservations, Trent Dalton has absolutely turned “ all these crazy and sad and tragic and beautiful things I’ve seen into a crazy, sad, tragic and beautiful story.” I have to admit that there were times when some of the things that happened here just didn’t feel realistic and some things towards the end felt over the top. Maybe it was because I couldn’t be any more removed from this world of drug dealers in this Brisbane suburb where these boys are raised. Yet, there is so much that l did love about this book and these characters that I couldn’t help but care about. There is a truth to how much love this story emanates. The silent understanding between Eli and his brother Gus, the friendship between Eli and Slim, the real Arthur Slim Holliday, a criminal and jail breaker, Eli’s unconditional love for his mother and her boyfriend Lyle, in spite of the sordid and dangerous life of drug dealing that the boys are in the middle of - these are the things that make this such a beautiful story. Dalton is an award winning Australian journalist, whom I had never heard of until now. This is his first novel and he is definitely on my radar now, with my hopes that he will write another .I received an advanced copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

5★+“Lyle says he approaches a drug deal in the same way he approaches Mum when she’s in a bad mood. Stay on your toes. Stay alert. Don’t let them stand too close to the kitchen knives. Be flexible, patient, adaptable. The buyer/angry Mum is always right.”Oliver Twist meets The Godfather. Those were the first books that came to mind. Films and TV that came to mind were Breaking Bad, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Sopranos, and possibly a bit of Stephen King. But it’s 100% Trent Dalton, and what an absolute legend he is! This is bound to be at the top of my favourites list for a long time.“Nothing connects a city quite like South-East Asian heroin.”This is based on his life, his upbringing, his alcoholic dad, drug-affected mother and drug-dealer boyfriend ("Lyle" of the opening quotation), and the whole violent, vicious drug scene where he grew up near Brisbane with three brothers. The book, however, has only Eli telling the story and he has only one brother. This is a novel, not a memoir, although if you listen to the author's interviews, you could be excused for thinking it is, and I'm scared to think how many of these life-threatening experiences may have been his!Eli Bell is 12, one year younger than August “Gus” Bell, who doesn’t speak. We learn about the harrowing near-drowning that triggered that, and as for the rest, I really don’t know where to start. It is a fabulous coming-of-age story like no other than I can think of. Trent Dalton is already an acclaimed feature writer and journalist* (see below), but this is way beyond that. He lets the character of Slim Halliday (who was a real-life convicted criminal) teach young Eli how to deal with whatever life throws at you. I know him only as the character in the book, although Dalton knew him in real life. In the book, he was known for having survived Black Peter, the name for the solitary confinement most prisons call the hole. “Slim says half of his Boggo Road prison mates would have died after a week in Black Peter because half of any prison population, and any major city of the world for that matter, is filled with adult men with child minds. But an adult mind can take an adult man anywhere he wants to go.. . . ‘I could do things with time in there,’ Slim says. ‘I got so intimate with time that I could manipulate it, speed it up, slow it down. Some days all you wanted was to speed it up, so you had to trick your brain.’”He would take himself fishing, mentally, catch fish, clean them, cook them, roll a smoke, watch the sunset and pass the time so busily he was surprised to see the end of the day. But, when he had an hour in the sun in the exercise yard, he learned how to slow down time and stretch it out to feel like several hours. What a great skill.Another trick he had made me think instantly of The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly about memory systems in civilisations around the world. “Slim says a good way for me to remember the small details of my life is to associate moments and visions with things on my person or things in my regular waking life that I see and smell and touch often. Body things, bedroom things, kitchen things. This way I will have two reminders of any given detail for the price of one.”Slim would choose marks and scars and spots on his body as his memory points the way we might collect souvenirs to remind us of something or the Australian Aboriginal memory code actually stores memories in places and trees and landscape.“He’d thumb the peaks and valleys of his knuckles and they wold take him there, to the hills of the Gold Coast hinterland, take him all the way to Springbrook Falls, and the cold steel prison bed frame of cell D9 would become a water-worn limestone rock and the prison hole’s cold concrete floor beneath his bare feet summer-warm water to dip his toes into . . .”Dalton can write the longest sentences, and they are always just the right length for me. His timing is great, his characters are wonderful and terrifying and the story is warm, and scary and thrilling and believable. Eli adores his parents and his mum’s boyfriend and his “best friend” Slim. He is basically a good kid, but he does get up to more than innocent childhood mischief, and no wonder. We meet all of these people, not the least of whom is his mute brother Gus who writes in the air with his finger, which Eli reads easily, even backwards sometimes. Gus likes to indicate he sees the future – we’re not so sure, but something is going on there. The chapters begin with three-word titles - “Boy Writes Words” and “Boy Loses Luck” and “Boy Parts Sea” – the kind of three-word summary an editor he eventually works for demands a writer use to describe a story. The drug lords, the heavies with knives and machetes, the really, really, REALLY scary dudes – these are all part and parcel of growing up for young Eli Bell. And apparently, a lot of it, including the seeing Mum in prison on Christmas Day were all part of life for young Trent Dalton. I’m so glad he discovered that he was a boy who could write words, and not just in the air.Beautifully written. Memorable characters, places you can see and smell, and that sense of time and space you had when you were a kid. They’re all here.Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. I haven’t begun to do this justice. Listen to the author here. He comes across as irrepressibly cheerful and enthusiastic. What a life! What a story!Here you can read about the real life red telephone and why it existed.https://authorlink.com/interview/aust...And here's an excellent podcast - or you can listen onlinehttp://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/...or herehttps://www.betterreading.com.au/podc...*“Podcast guest: Trent DaltonTrent Dalton is a staff writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine and former assistant editor of The Courier Mail. He’s a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a three-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.”Photograph of Trent Dalton at the Better Reading podcast

Boy Swallows Universe is a coming of age story like no other. Dalton's beautiful prose, compelling characters and emotionally tragic story was tinged with mystical elements that gave the book an almost otherworldly feel.Eli and August are brothers being raised amongst drugs, violence and poverty. Yet amidst all these dangers these boys have such a special bond and connection, helping each other through heartache and tragedy. Eli is the story's central character and his life is anything but easy. His older brother August is a selective mute, his mother and her boyfriend are drug dealers, his babysitter is a notorious ex-criminal and his drunken father is non-existent in his life. Despite all the violence and wrongdoing around him, Eli has big aspirations for himself to become a journalist and above all be a good person. The characters in this story were wonderful, probably because they were loosely based on people in Dalton's childhood. You can tell he fleshed them out from the heart. They were vivid, engaging and integral to the storyline. Eli and August completely stole my heart - what amazing boys! Their sense of family and their desire to do something good was so strong. You can't help but to root for them to finally have the kind of life they so desperately desire. Thank you to Trent Dalton, Harper Collins and Edelweiss for the opportunity to read and review an arc of this book.

I don't usually like mystery novels. I'm not usually interested in crime. Usually, I switch off as soon as I read about drug gangs and baddies and deadbeats and psychos. I hate those stories, usually. Usually, they suck.But this book?Good God. This book was awesome.

OKAY.You got me.I was really excited to read this hyped book, but when I read the first few pages I was devastated. I was convinced it wasn't going to be my kind of book at all - it was such a drain to follow what was being said. The disappointment was real.I put it down after seven pages and it's taken me another three months or so to get back to it. Now, here I am to confess: I was wrong. I smashed through it in two days.Straight up? The writing style is absolutely not my thing at all. It's creative and poetic and lyrical and it works hard at symbolism and telling things in convoluted ways and making clever veiled references to things you know are gonna crop up later. I hate that. I'm a straight shooter, and I kinda prefer my books that way, too.But the story, man, the story , was absolutely fascinating. It was a train wreck I couldn't look away from. I mean, I just had no fking CLUE what was going down here. There are some familiar moments here but overall this is an enthralling tale set in QLD suburbia and once it had a grip on me I was done for. It was a little slow to warm up and I was feeling resentful of having to read it for the first 50 pages or so but it didn't take much more than that for me to become invested.The telephone stuff was a bit wacky for me (that symbolism stuff again) and it seemed a really strange story to fit that angle into, but on the whole I really enjoyed what seemed to me a smudge of colour in a charcoal picture. There are other stories about drug dealers and rival gangs etc etc but Eli made this one stand out way above the rest.I didn't think it was going to be for me, but boy was I wrong.What a fantastic read.This was book 16 of my #dymocks52challenge refined. You can read more here.

The cover of my copy is adorned with 10 award-winning badges. And deservedly so. An amazing achievement in writing. As with a couple of other books, I’ve arrived at this one late, after the hype and accolades, so I had to expect my expectations were high. This is not always a good thing and maybe contributed to my 4 vs. 5-star rating. That’s not to say a rating of 4 is to be scoffed at.The story spins around a fascinating ensemble of family, friends and foes – with the young protagonist working out, surviving and growing into his often violent ‘universe’. Trent Dalton is a master at painting the Australian urban and social landscapes, there’s no doubt about that. Even those Australian readers who did not live through the 1980s might recognise some historical and iconic references, right down to pop culture and clothing, therefore I’m unsure if it will resonate as well with those outside Australia.Minor case in point – thongs to Australians are flip flops to the English, and I think ‘Badelatschen’ to the Germans. Unsure what is said in America?In any event, I think Dalton knew this. He’s helped you out:“It’s the flip-flops we hear first, the rubber thongs of a menacing Queenslander descending the concrete steps to the man-made hell bunker. Flip, Flop. Flip. Flop. Rubber on concrete.”It takes a skilled writer to get away with lengthy sentences, and oh boy, does Dalton do this well. There were times when I felt he was pushing me up a steep hill, so many words, nearly making me run out of breath, only giving relief at the last moment and letting me down the other side. Clever! For me, it was his short, sharp and brutal prose that were the more impressive:“He can tell you how he’s feeling by the way he unscrews a Vegemite jar lid.” Brilliant.“Rage was coming off Lyle like a bad cologne.” Fierce. “I stand up the way a thirteen-year-old Aztec boy might have stood up on a beach when he saw a Spanish fleet cutting across the horizon.” Thought-provoking stuff. Okay, okay… I’ll give it 4.5 stars!

Kylie Minogue, Joseph Conrad, the fascist state that was Queensland and how I came to realise that the star rating system may not be appropriate for this book. Part three.A great Brisbane Novel? Maybe but again the rating of stars seems a bit pointless as this being a book about my home town, and the third Brisbane novel I have read in recent times, I have now given all three the maximum rating. The reality is that that is my rating because I related to them for obvious reasons. Many may not. The reality is that the only one that really rates that maximum rating is Andrew McGahan Praise. There is a realistic grittiness in that book that rings true. Boy Swallows Universe is more witty magical realism. Author Trent Dalton has written a strangely seductive amalgam of family history, fantasy and observation of his childhood that was Brisbane in the 1980’s when this terrific novel takes place. Eli is his youthful narrator of this book and Eli observes with a sharp wit, an almost humble self-depreciating attitude as to what goes on around him and what events occur in his young life. There is a lot of emotion written in this book from the very witty that is obviously witty to the very sad that is obviously very sad and that is always going to suck any reader from anywhere if the writing appeals. The Brisbane and various cultural references of the times come think and fast, hence the appeal to me. One example is Ribbetts, a takaway food place that gets a mention in this book. It still does exist and is across the road from what did exist but no longer does and that is Boggo Road Jail. Google maps is your friend when reading this book. There are name drops galore that the average Brisbane resident would and should relate to. My home suburb gets a mention with both Moorooka and its Magic Mile of Motors. That great Brisbane muso Ed Kuepper had an album called This is The Magic Mile in tribute. Tragically a sign heralding your entrance into this magic mile was consumed in a fire a few years back. A cultural tragedy up there with the demolition of the Buddas of Bamyan and the Bellvue Hotel. As with all these style of books the wit can be rather infectious. Eli and his family have to go to a Vietnamese restaurant near the Darra train station for business dealings. The owner, Eli observes, has an opinion as to why Australians wallow in inherent misery. Their childhood is so “idyllic and joyous” with the beach, backyard cricket and never ending sunshine that anything beyond that can never match. Hence “junk cures all misery”. This was true then and is now. My generation, the baby boomers, booze ourselves with both legal and illegal drug and self-pity is rife. When some 18 year old minimum wage earner in a bar fails to deliver our drink at the speed of light we will let them know very loudly and collectively with a growl in our voices. We are filthy rich by any standards, are superannuated up to our ears, receive tax credits back from the poorer PAYE taxpayer for our 1.9 million dollar fully franked dividends received and have the government of our choice. But we are not happy and by cripes we will shout about that from the ultra-rich media owned exclusively by our generation. Oh yes and I drove past the Darra train station not long ago and there is still a Vietnamese restaurant. Firstly Kylie gets no mention in this book. Much to my surprise Joseph Conrad did. It is indeed wonderful to know that through heartfelt generosity many a Saturday afternoon drunk at the Bracken Ridge Tavern is not only looking for a bet on the horses but is discussing the “psychological resonance of Heart Of Darkness.” This and The Delinquents? What is it with the Queensland’s lower socio economic group and their need to read Conrad? The fascist state that was Qld existed in this book. This is seemingly a theme for some writers of the street when it comes to the deep north. Hard to steer away from that past in reality. It is part of the historical narrative. There maybe a lot of love in this book but also a lot of Queensland’s dark past.Strangely good fun to read and recommended to Brisbaneites from both sides of the river. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ABIA LITERARY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR4.5 Stars.The highest praise I can give this novel is that at times I thought it was written by one of my very favourite authors, Tim Winton. Three Quarters of the way through this book I was ready to declare this my favourite read of the year. It has this great Winton feel to it. It has that great Aussie style of language and slang. It has characters to die for. Slim, feels like a Winton creation. The only gripe I have with the novel, and the only thing that stopped me from giving it five stars, is the incongruous, over the top ending, which had me checking the cover to make sure I was reading the same book. The ending is so out of place with the rest of the narrative. I truly wish that Dalton could have come up with an alternative ending, because, as I said, I loved everything else about this book. The protagonist, Eli, who has had such a troubled childhood. He questions the male role model characters in the book asking them if they consider themselves to be good men. Looking for the good in others, ultimately looking for the good in himself. He and his brother, who no longer talks after their father drove them into a dam, are raised by their mother and her boyfriend who are heroin dealers. This results in Eli’s confusion. Because in his eyes, Lyle, the boyfriend, and father figure, although a heroin dealer, is striving to be a good man and doing everything for Eli and his brother. His confusion is only strengthened by his babysitter Slim, who has spent just about his whole life in jail for a murder that he may or may not have committed. The relationship between Eli and Slim is one of the highlights of the book for me. There are so many great moments in this novel. His father’s library, which is just an empty room, no shelves, filled with thousands upon thousands of books, and silverfish. Elie’s break-in to Boggo Road jail to see his mother. There are elements of magical realism contained within the novel, but these are left intentionally vague and can also be seen in a realistic light. I found these elements strengthened the narrative and were written in a way that caters for both fans and those who dislike magical realism. Even with the ending, this is still a stellar book. This is Dalton’s first work of fiction and I have a feeling he is going to become a star in the literary “universe”.

To say I was excited to discover a novel by Trent Dalton is a massive understatement.   Boy Swallows Universe is his debut novel but I've adored the authors writing for years.  He's an award winning journalist and I cannot get enough of the way he tells a story, the compassion in his words and the way I feel I know the people he writes about.     And so it was with the characters he brought to life in this novel.      Eli Bell our protagonist is a young boy in Brisbane in the early 80's.  His older brother Gus has been mute since age six but has what Eli believes to be special powers.      His mother loves her sons desperately but it's fair to say she and her partner Lyle run with a bad crowd and make some questionable decisions.     They wanted a better life for the boys so started dealing heroin and have now made enemies of some dangerous people.     Eli's best friend is a notorious ex-criminal who had served time for murder; he's pen pals with a convicted sergeant-at-arms of an outlaw motorcycle gang.  He's exposed to things no boy  should be, and yet, amongst the crime, the coarse language (f-bombs and c-bombs galore), the violence (domestic and otherwise) there is love, there is learning, and believe it or not there is goodness.      Sure I questioned whether some elements were plausible but, to be frank, I didn't really care and just got swept away in the story.    I found this to be a book of contrasts and contradictions.   Dalton delivered some supposedly good guys who were evil and vice versa.   He expertly blended fact with fiction.   He wove elements of fantasy into the harsh reality of this story and somehow managed to transport me to a time and place which was incredibly familiar to me whilst simultaneously completely foreign to me.    It was a unique story and one I thoroughly enjoyed it.  My thanks and congratulations to Trent Dalton for his wonderful words.  Thanks also to HarperCollins Publishers Australia and NetGalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review which it was my pleasure to provide.

Twelve year old Eli Bell has had a rough life, his mother is a drug addict and in jail, his father can’t be found and his stepfather is a drug dealer and he has a mute brother. Eli’s home life isn’t great to say the least, but he is doing the best he can to grow into a respectable young man, but it seems the odds are against him. Being surrounded by violence, drugs and crime on a daily basis, Eli’s future is looking somewhat bleak. Can Eli make a safer life for himself and turn his life around and become the person he dreams of being or will he too get caught up in drugs and violence the world he is familiar with.Boy Swallows Universe is a well written story by Aussie author Trent Dalton. This story will take you on an emotional roller coaster ride that’s for certain. It’s a heartwarming story, but parts of it are rather disturbing. I found it hard getting into this book at first, but I continued on and I’m glad I did as I really did enjoy it. But a warning for readers who don’t like profanities in their books as there are quite a few throughout this book. And lastly, I must make mention on the beautiful, colorful and very eye catching cover. I have no doubt this book has been loved by many and will continue to be read and enjoyed by many more readers. Highly recommended.

My reading experience is always so much better when I have experienced first-hand the settings described in a book. In this instance it is the suburbs of Brisbane that came to life, specifically the lakeside suburb of Sandgate. Noted for its ‘nursing homes and fish and chips’ and a lot of talk about the railway station, I could put my 13-year-old self into the scene due to my frequent trips to my Aunty, Uncle and cousins. It was great hearing so many suburbs come to life, as many suburbs were mentioned with frequency. Added to my experience was completing the audio read on a plane en route to visit my beloved Aunty Donna just last month. The author has captured the most ‘Australian-ness’ I have ever seen. This book is absolutely worthy of its acclaim. Literary fiction at its finest, and worth noting also is the perfection of the audio experience, brought to life by a very talented Stig Wemyss. Here is an article relating to the narrator: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...This tale is partly a coming of age story, partly a take on kinship and probably most prominent to me, partly a tale of friendship. I am not going to provide a synopsis here, what I would like to say is this author has the goods. This is the author’s debut work; this is quite stunning given the writing perfection shown throughout this magnificent read. The prose is lyrical and confronting, this combined with the most original plot imaginable makes for a remarkable book. It is with the strongest recommendation that I suggest this book, it is a story to be savoured quietly with the most intense gratification rewarded at the end. Mister Elie Bell is a witty, funny, lovable and loyal kid, I suggest you read his story. It will be the most remarkable tale told by a thirteen-year-old that you will ever experience.