'Boy Swallows Universe' author on cost of chasing success

Emerging from a "dark place" full of violence and drug addiction, Australian best-selling author Trent Dalton says he was driven to anything that kept him out of trouble and became "obsessed with going to higher places".

Best known for his 2018 semi-autobiographical novel Boy Swallows Universe, the former journalist’s latest novel, Gravity Let Me Go, dives into the cost of being obsessed with chasing after stories.

"This is me trying to take an honest look at some of my failings and some of my mistakes that I've made as a husband and as a dad, and I tried to throw them all into this study of long-term marriage that is, as you so beautifully say, wrapped inside a murder mystery," Dalton told Saturday Morning.

During his 30s, he was so ambitious about reporting, but sometimes regrettably left some people he spoke to feeling worse off, he says.

His novel questions storytelling ethics and the “global obsession” with people who are defined by horrific acts.

Dalton remembers, for instance, when he was newlywed and a father, a provoked brother of a serial killer prodded him to go down a basement full of machinery – and he did so in the pursuit of a story.

"He pulled a lever and this metal object popped out and it fell into his hand, and it was a bullet - this guy had a license to make bullets - and he handed me a bullet, and he said, ‘This is something to remember me by...'

"I just remember thinking, what lengths would I actually go to for a story, and this is all in Gravity…

"It took me being a novelist and getting out of that race … to kind of see what I was doing and look at myself and going, what was I after? What was I chasing? And in many ways, I was chasing success."

That’s why Dalton’s got a soft spot for his latest novel’s main character, Noah Cork – a true crime journalist “anti-hero” who is struggling to find his place and getting it all wrong.

“We think sometimes that being a good husband and being a good dad is all about just working for the rest of our lives and providing and forgetting that, nah, actually the kids and our amazing partners were quite happy just having us in the house.”

Noah’s wife, Rita, stops talking at one point – it’s a "most powerful silence" and a metaphor for his real-life "long-suffering, incredibly patient” wife, who hasn’t had much of a say in how he’s expressed their love story nor what it’s like to live with him.

But she’s now had input in the play they’ve created based on his Love Stories book – a collection Dalton gathered on the streets of Brisbane of 100 couples’ stories.

"[His wife Fiona] wrote the end of that book, like the whole book ends with her telling me what love is, and it's the most profound letter … she actually cut right to the bone about why an idiot like me would do such an exercise, and then we've taken that letter and kind of crafted a whole central through line to this play."

He finds there’s power in retelling stories through various mediums, giving them a chance to touch more hearts.

"Sometimes you need all these different forms of media to get the story to the right person who needs it at that right moment."

In the case of Boy Swallows Universe – inspired by his rough upbringing between heroin-addicted parents in the ‘80s and his mother’s prison stint, which was adapted into an award-winning Netflix series – it made a mark on his family too.

"I genuinely felt the need to write that story, particularly Boy, and I had to call my mom and go, hey, Mum, I'm sorry you didn't raise a carpenter. I could have built you a cupboard, but I kind of wrote you a book.

"It's a tribute to you, and it's a tribute to dad, but there's parts in it that you're going to hate, but I promise you, there's so many parts in it that you're going to love, because it's nothing but a tribute to the reasons why I love you so much."

Although his children didn’t get to know his dad well before he died, because they were young and he was ill, his eldest daughter was weeping "waterfalls of tears" watching the Netflix show as she finally got to know her Papa.

Dalton asked her if it was too much and whether she wanted it to stop, but she said: "Dad, don’t you dare stop it, it’s not too sad, it’s not too hard – it’s too beautiful."

*Trent Dalton is set to take the stage on 15 October with the Auckland Writers Festival event ‘An Evening With Trent Dalton’, and the following evening kicks off Love Stories - a stage play inspired by his work, exclusive to Auckland.