Boy Swallows Universe

Sometimes it pays to keep reading.

When I first started reading this novel, I was beginning to wonder where it was going. I'm glad I persevered because it wasn't long before the story of Eli Bell captured me completely.

Written from the perspective of a young Eli, the story is a coming-of-age tale, set in the suburbs of Brisbane in the eighties. At the outset, Eli narrates the events in his life from the naivety of a twelve-year-old mixed with the maturity of a boy who has seen too much in his time. Eli and his brother Gus are the children of a drug-addicted mother and an alcoholic father. They live with their mother and her drug-dealer boyfriend.  

Amidst a community seeped in poverty, violence and crime, Eli and Gus manage to navigate their world without succumbing to the depths of despair and addiction that plagued their parents and their parents’ friends. The boys have plans. Eli wants to become a journalist. August doesn't speak, the result of a trauma he suffered. Instead, he writes words in the air, which Eli deciphers. The brothers are close, and they love their parents, despite their sordid upbringing. Eli's hero is his babysitter, the infamous criminal Slim, the Houdini of Boggo Road Gaol. The other man in Eli's life is his mother's boyfriend, Lyle.

When Lyle disappears, and Eli's mother goes to prison for drug dealing, Eli and August move in with their father, who despite his chronic drinking, is an avid reader. Whilst living with his father, Eli decides to break into the prison to see his mother, inspired by Slim's stories of escape. He's busy trying to find out what has happened to Lyle and in doing so, comes across the path of some dangerous criminals.

The novel is set in the eighties and is a minefield of cultural references from that time. Readers who grew up in that era are taken on a trip down memory lane with The Partridge Family, Commodore 64s, Ataris, Heart of Glass, the Parramatta Eels and the food and music that makes baby boomers swoon with nostalgia. This setting, along with the laconic style, makes the novel quintessentially Australian. The larrikin, the criminal element, the infamous murderer who read Hindu myths while in gaol, the alcoholic father who reads Henry Miller and can quote Aristotle, the Vietnamese mothers with their perfect make-up and 'immovable hair' are all here in intricate detail.   

Dalton's characters are redeemed by the good that is still in them, despite their unsavoury lifestyles and choices. He invites the reader to experience compassion for those who have done bad things but are trying not to do them anymore. Through Eli's relationships with Slim and Lyle, his love for his parents, and his fierce loyalty to those he cares about, Eli shows us that love is possible in the most unlikely places and circumstances.

Eli's nature is forgiving, and he is never judgmental. His observations about his mother and Lyle are rendered through eyes of childish literalism without the attachment of the moral high ground. And yet, Eli is not so naive that he is completely clueless.

 'I have suspected that Mum and Lyle are drug dealers since I found a five-hundred-gram brick of Golden Triangle heroin stowed in the mower catcher in our backyard shed five days ago. I feel certain Mum and Lyle are drug dealers when Slim tells me they have gone to the movies to see Terms of Endearment.'

Eli is conscious of his father's shortcomings but keeps his thoughts to himself. 'Our Christmas tree is an indoor plant named Henry Bath. Henry Bath is an Australian weeping fig… we stand around the weeping fig, marveling at the saddest Christmas tree in Lancelot Street and possibly the Southern Hemisphere.'

It is Eli's ability to recognise that his parents and their friends are not wholly good or bad, that they are complex, that endears the reader to him. The novel tackles questions with no easy answers. Can there be some good in very bad people? What makes forgiveness possible? What are the elements of redemption?

We come to care about Eli Bell, whether he is cleaning up his father's piss, visiting his mother in gaol, fretting over the older woman in his life, hating his mother's new boyfriend or deciphering his brother's air-writing. Eli Bell is Australia's answer to Holden Caulfield, minus the cynicism.

As Eli grows up, his language and perceptions mature, but he still never becomes an arbiter for other people's poor decisions, unless they cause harm to those he loves. There are some very violent scenes in this novel; however, Dalton manages to render them into lyrical and humorous prose, capturing disturbing events along with the comedy that sometimes accompanies them.

Dalton uses magic realism and fabulist techniques to take the reader into the heads and hearts of Eli and Gus. He also gives a nod to metanarrative elements. The style is accessible and often you find yourself laughing. If you want some fun, this is your novel.

It is difficult to give this novel a genre. Part bildungsroman, part thriller, part comedic crime fiction, it is a curious mixture of literary elements. Overall, it is a beautiful and very original piece of writing. Funny, poignant, raw and sensitive, Boy Swallows Universe is ultimately about love.