One Trick Pony: Boy Swallows Universe

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

Fourth Estate

Pp. 471

Set in Brisbane in 1985, this novel focuses on a boy, Eli Bell, and his terrible life. His father is absent; his drug-addicted mother is in gaol; his brother, August, doesn’t speak but writes words in the air with his finger, predicting things he couldn’t possibly know and that don’t make any sense; his stepfather is a dealer; and he’s surrounded by violent criminals. It is reminiscent of Bridge of Clay in style, where a young boy narrates but with a much older voice than the teenage kid he is meant to be.

Eli seems anxious to show off his disadvantage; he is brought up by drug-dealing thugs and potential killers, and told many prison stories. At one point his mother’s boyfriend drags her by the hair down to the dog kennel and forces her to eat their food from the dog bowl; at another he has his index finger chopped off with a cleaver. Referring constantly to the seedy underside of life and proudly intent on exposing the dark side of the country,, his unrelentingly grim descriptions sound like a kid trying to be hard-boiled, thinking he’s Holden Caulfield and hiding behind a tough exterior.

The style constantly gets in the way of the story, to the point that it is tedious to follow. Dalton writes in the present tense, in frequently overblown prose, with short snatches of description that aren’t actually sentences. “This room of true love. This room of blood. Sky-blue fibro walls.” The many full stops do not create emphasis, but merely sound like empty aphorisms; one could try to work out whether they mean anything, but mainly they just sound like an advert for carpet. Many of the references are to male narratives he probably wouldn’t have read: Ken Kesey; Henry Miller; Papillon by Henri Charriere; Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; Patrick White; Hermann Hesse; John Le Carré; Joseph Conrad; Hemingway and Herman Melville.

There are also allusions to The Wizard of Oz and The Jungle Book, and a scene in which Eli escapes from hospital by getting another child patient to create a diversion, which is his take on the escape from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Eli’s mute brother, August, writes words in the air: Your end is a small blue wren; Caitlin Spies. These all, obviously, turn out to be prophetic. Eli ruminates, “Maybe we’d all be much more effective communicators if we all shut up more.” Ooh, deep!

Eli writes to Slim’s friends in prison, and Slim (his babysitter and a previous criminal who served time) advises him to put details into the letters: “The boys appreciate all that detailed daily life shit they don’t get any more.” Eli hones his observation skills because this builds up knowledge, which leads to power. It is, also, however, monotonous and smacks of product placement. The number of times he mentions the brand of his shoes and tracksuits; he could be sponsored by Dunlop and Adidas.

He thinks of his mother as a saint or an angel, but she’s a dealer and a junkie who winds up in gaol. There is a sentimental view of mothers which is familiar from stock criminal narratives. His father (Robert), Slim (Arthur) and Lyle are men who teach Eli wisdom whereas women don’t teach him anything; they are mothers, nurses, and love interests. He is well aware of the toxic masculinity that surrounds him and believes that “every problem in the world, every crime ever committed, can be traced back to someone’s dad... Mums maybe too, I guess, but there ain’t no shit mum in this world that wasn’t first the daughter of a shit dad.”

All of the chapters are introduced with three-word headings such as Boy Writes Words, Boy Receives Letter, Boy Meets Girl, Boy Seeks Help, Boy Parts Sea, Boy Steals Ocean, Boy Conquers Moon. The reason for this becomes apparent later when a newspaper editor asks Eli to describe his story in three words: Boy Swallows Universe.

The novel certainly contains a lot of detail, is grimly pessimistic and, although Dalton claims it is a love story, it is more of a tirade. He may claim that love and family is the answer rather than drug addiction, but he has a good wallow in poverty porn before he reaches that conclusion.