by Trent Dalton
‘What’s the quickest way to California?’ the girl asks. And she turns her head to Greta Maze and she smiles because the actress glows. She glows so bright that she attracts a small and wondrous creature to her that flies from the edge of the vine forest. A small white butterfly that floats out of the deep green and flutters around the shoulders of Greta Maze before rising towards the blue sky and pausing to hover momentarily above the tilted and awed faces of the crossroads travellers. Molly Hook reaches both her arms up to the butterfly, beaming and bouncing as she waves at it.
The butterfly pushes on through the warm air and Greta smiles and her eyes follow its direction of travel. ‘That way,’ she says.
The traditional story that Sam Greenway refers to in his recollections of what his grandfather called ‘The Lightning Man’ is from the story of Namarrkon (pronounced narm-arrgon), who signifies the coming of the wet season in Australia’s Top End. This story belongs to the traditional owners of this vast region and it is with utmost respect and thanks to elders, past, present and emerging that I refer to it briefly in this story. Deepest thanks to Alison Nawirridj and her husband, Leslie Nawirridj, a senior member of the Kunwinjku family of artists from Western Arnhem Land. Leslie’s grandfather told him the story of Namarrkon and I am profoundly grateful that he helped me word the text and this acknowledgement.
Deepest thanks to Tess Atie and Greg Balding. Tess grew up in the area that was later proclaimed Litchfield National Park. She has family all the way from Mandorah on the Cox Peninsula to Peppimenarti, beyond the Daly River. Tess runs Northern Territory Indigenous Tours, a wholly Indigenous-owned tour company specialising in natural and cultural interpretation from an Aboriginal viewpoint. She and her partner, Greg, generously assisted me with passages of the text and showed me how to see the Top End with my heart and soul as much as with my head. Their deep knowledge and infectious love for their wondrous and vast backyard ripples through this book.
In January 2019, it was my honour to travel to Groote Eylandt, off the remote eastern coast of Arnhem Land, with the MJD Foundation, an extraordinary organisation that works in partnership with Aboriginal Australians, families and communities living with the genetically inherited neurodegenerative condition Machado-Joseph disease. The highest concentration of MJD in the world is on Groote Eylandt, where an estimated 186 members of the 1100-strong Indigenous population have parents or grandparents who inherited the disease, giving them a 50 per cent chance of also having MJD. It was amid the dream-like wilderness of Groote that Steve ‘Bakala’ Wurramara told me of the bush medicine and deep magic knowledge passed on to him by his father and grandmother, which he is using to assist Sydney scientists in finding a treatment or cure for his MJD condition. I could not have met a more inspiring individual just prior to writing this book and I have no doubt that a good deal of Bakala’s charm and charisma unconsciously found its way into Molly’s hero, Sam Greenway. Deepest thanks to Bakala and the MJD Foundation. Thanks to the team at Translationz for assistance with Yukio’s dialogue.
The poem Greta enjoys in the story is ‘The Woman at the Washtub’, written in 1902 by the Australian poet Victor Daley. Molly and Aubrey quote lines from Walt Whitman’s 1855 poem ‘Song of Myself ’.
Story and structure ripple through Catherine Milne’s veins and her passion for books and words infects the blood of every last writer lucky enough to work with her. You saw where Molly was going from the start, Catherine, and it opened skies in my head. Thank you, dear friend. Alice Wood – wing woman, wonder, weapon – this book exists because of you. Everyone needs a Scott Forbes in their life. Sentence saviour. Error terrier. Hawk-eyed genius. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for the exceptional proofreads, Pamela Dunne and Nicola Young. Darren Holt, you are a miracle man to me. A gift, too. Thank you. Thanks to Jim Demetriou, Brigitta Doyle, Libby O’Donnell, Darren Kelly, Tom Wilson and the whole rattling and unstoppable HarperCollins Australia engine. Thanks to the great James Kellow for your faith, which turned into my belief. Thanks to every last Australian bookseller and book reader for everything you did for Eli Bell and his family and by that I mean my family.
Thanks to Christine Middap and the whole beloved Oz mag gang. Thanks to Christine Westwood, Michelle Gunn, Helen Trinca, Chris Dore, Nicholas Gray, Michael Miller, Campbell Reid, Justin Lees, Amy Lees, Andrew McMillen and all the glorious members, past and present, of that white-hot indie-pop-rock-journo band The Bureau. Thanks, Mark Schliebs, for the early read and the inspiration. Thanks, Stephen Romei, fellow rooster. Thank you, Sir Matthew Condon, fellow sailor. Thank you, Asher Keddie, Kristina Olsson, Richard Glover, Venero Armanno, Annabel Crabb, Clare Bowditch and Kathleen Noonan, earth angels all. Thanks for your magic, Mem Fox. Thanks to Adriana and Dan Penman, Kristi and Matthew Gooden, Rebecca and Chris Lane, dear laughing circle. Thanks, Kristine and Stefan Szylkarski, Suellen Cash and Brad Sonego, Serena Coates, Edward Louis Severson III and every last beloved friend I thanked the last time.
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.
BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE
TRENT DALTON
The bestselling, critically acclaimed and award-wining novel that has taken Australia, and the world, by storm
Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It’s not as if Eli Bell’s life isn’t complicated enough already. He’s just trying to follow his heart and understand what it means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way – not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.
But now Eli’s life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he’s about to meet the father he doesn’t remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum, come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the girl of his dreams.
A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.
‘Without exaggeration, the best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade’ Sydney Morning Herald
www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008319281/boy-swallows-universe/
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.
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