Exiled in a drug-oppressed refugee suburb in 1980s Australia, a 12-year-old boy dreams of a career in journalism while fending off the local criminal element to protect his imprisoned mother. A first novel. 100,000 first printing.
An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate, and a boy’s coming-of-age, set in 1980s Australia
Eli Bell’s life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in Eli’s life is Slim—a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes—who watches over Eli and August, Eli’s silent genius of an older brother.
Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a neglected suburb of Brisbane, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism. Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli’s path—most notably Tytus Broz, Queensland’s legendary drug dealer.
But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from certain doom—all before starting high school.
A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships,
Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful, kinetic, and infused with originality, charm, pathos, and heart to spare, Trent Dalton’s debut is sure to be one of the most exhilarating novels you will experience.
“It is such a pleasant shock to encounter a new Australian novel in which joy is shamelessly deployed. . . . It is a story in thrall to the potential the world holds for lightness, laughter, beauty, forgiveness, redemption, and love. . . . [Dalton] invests this unlikely cast and milieu with considerable energy, wit and charm. He delights in the play of language and imagination that a child can summon: the sense in which the clear moral eye of youth can critique and adore simultaneously without judgment or adult moral finessing.”
