All Our Shimmering Skies
Page 39
Thanks for all of it, Mum. Thank you, Darcy, Mara, James, Reggie, Ethan and Rosalie Dalton and your beautiful mums and dads. Thanks, dear Jesse. Thanks, Dawn and Bernie Franzmann. Thanks, Lenora, Michael, Patrick and David O’Connor. Thanks, Tim, Kate, Jack and Ava Franzmann. Fiona, Beth and Sylvie, I would need to write a novel to thank you properly, which is why I wrote this one. I love you. And thanks for the skies, Dad. I see you. Rock on, George Toringo, one more time now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TRENT DALTON writes for The Weekend Australian Magazine. He’s 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. His debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe (HarperCollins, 2018), is a critically acclaimed national bestseller, winner of the 2019 Indie Book of the Year Award, the MUD Literary Prize and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. At the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards, the book won a record four awards, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award. Boy Swallows Universe has been published across thirty-four English-language and translation territories.
PRAISE FOR ALL OUR SHIMMERING SKIES
‘As Australian as outback red dirt and as universal as the sky young Molly Hook’s journey takes place beneath, All Our Shimmering Skies is an open-hearted wonder, by turns heartbreaking and full of hope, no less than an instant classic’ Venero Armanno
‘A glinting, big-hearted miracle of a book’ Richard Glover
‘Australia has a new literary hero. Molly Hook – part Cordelia, part Jo March, part Pippi Longstocking – pulls us into a story and a landscape that is mythic, beguiling and almost hallucinatory in its beauty. And instantly recognisable as our own’ Kristina Olsson
‘Only from the fantastical mind of Trent Dalton could this story be realised with such vivid finesse. My mind is blown once again by his extraordinary imagination and truly engaging characters – this ensemble of angels and monsters will stay with me forever. Trent’s gift is born of a true heart, the most curious of minds and an unashamed gusto for the truth. For me, this is storytelling at its absolute purest and most enlightening: provocative, deeply moving and infinitely insightful. All Our Shimmering Skies is a courageous expression of longing, hope and love against unimaginable odds’ Asher Keddie
Praise for Boy Swallows Universe
‘The best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade . . . The last 100 pages of Boy Swallows Universe propel you like an express train to a conclusion that is profound and complex and unashamedly commercial . . . A rollicking ride, rich in philosophy, wit, truth and pathos’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘A towering achievement. It is the Cloudstreet of the Australian suburban criminal underworld’ Herald Sun
‘A story in thrall to the potential the world holds for lightness, laughter, beauty, forgiveness, redemption and love’ The Australian
‘One of the best Australian novels I’ve ever read . . . The characters are human and complex, the writing is fast-paced and heartfelt, and every sentence is surprising . . . This book will stay with me for a long time’ The Guardian
‘Filled with beautifully lyric prose . . . the characterization, too, is universally memorable, especially of Eli and August. At one point Eli wonders if he is good. The answer is “yes,” every bit as good as this exceptional novel’ Booklist (USA)
‘Funny, tender and raw . . . It is a remarkably compelling story, but what really makes Boy Swallows Universe shine is its use of language. Dalton has invented a kind of clipped, poetic vernacular that colours the entire book . . . there’s something distinctly picturesque about Dalton’s language that makes it inherently Australian . . . A wonderful, unexpectedly beautiful portrayal of boyhood and destiny’ Better Reading
‘The book is plotted like a murder mystery, with the requisite twists and turns providing illuminating surprises right to the last page. Scenes are rendered in intimate detail, the characters are as real as your family and the writing is glorious’ Adelaide Advertiser
‘Oh my God. Wow. It’s just superb. I’ve always looked out for Trent’s work because he has a magic about him: what he sees, how he explains things. He can describe a kitchen table in a way that makes you want to throw your arms around it. After reading Boy Swallows Universe I realise that his genius isn’t really just about writing so much; it’s about hope, and his instinctive and infectious “Yes” to one of the most plaguing questions of the human night: can tenderness survive brutality? This novel confirms Trent Dalton as a genuine treasure of Australian letters’ Annabel Crabb
‘As a brilliant journalist, Trent Dalton has always intimately understood how fact is often stranger than fiction. Perhaps it took someone like him to produce a novel so humming with truth. Call it a hunch, but I think he might’ve just written an Australian classic’ Benjamin Law
‘I’ve finally had a chance to immerse myself in this – a truly incredible book, one where I feel I will miss the characters as if they’re real friends. What an achievement’ Leigh Sales
‘Stunning. My favourite novel for decades. Left me devastated but looking to the heavens’ Tim Rogers
‘An astonishing achievement. Dalton is a breath of fresh air – raw, honest, funny, moving. He has created a novel of the most surprising and addictive nature. Unputdownable’ David Wenham
‘I couldn’t stop reading from the moment I started, and I still can barely speak for the beauty of it. Trent Dalton has done something very special here, writing with grace, from his own broken heart’ Caroline Overington
‘This novel is a raucous, moving, hilarious triumph – a major new voice on the Australian literary scene has arrived’ Nikki Gemmell
‘A gothic humdinger, wrapped around a love story, wrapped around a riddle, wrapped around the universe: this is the book that has everything’ Richard Glover
‘Enthralling – a moving account of sibling solidarity and the dogged pursuit of love’ Geoffrey Robertson QC
‘It’s fresh, original, it’s dripping with promise. A voyage of wide-eyed wonder’ Radio New Zealand
‘A true Australian masterpiece’ Marie Claire
‘Boy Swallows Universe is a wonderful surprise: sharp as a drawer full of knives in terms of subject matter; unrepentantly joyous in its child’s-eye view of the world; the best literary debut in a month of Sundays’ The Australian
‘Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak’ Washington Post
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COPYRIGHT
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
HarperCollinsPublishers
Australia • Brazil • Canada • France • Germany • Holland • Hungary India • Italy • Japan • Mexico • New Zealand • Poland • Spain • Sweden Switzerland • United Kingdom • United States of America
First published in Australia in 2020
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Trent Dalton 2020
The right of Trent Dalton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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ISBN 978 1 4607 5390 3 (paperback)
ISBN 978 1 4607 5982 0 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 4607 0842 2 (ebook)
ISBN 978 1 4607 8397 9 (audiobook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: ‘Banksia’ from The Botanist’s Repository, for New and Rare Plants (Plate 457), 1797, by Henry Charles Andrews, courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library/Biodiversity Library; all other images by shutterstock.com