The book of Eli
An audacious debut novel engrosses with a coming-of-age story set against a seedy Brisbane underworld.
Aussie journalist Trent Dalton has written possibly the most cloying reader notes of the year to accompany his first novel. He’s also written what could be – dammit, should be – the continent’s most audacious, affirming story of 2018. I spent four hours nodding, grinning, even exclaiming with pleasure at it.
And I’m meant to be a critic.
Almost-teenager Eli isn’t growing up in the best of environments. Dad’s an alky; Mum’s en route to jail; babysitter Slim bashed a cabby to death; stepdad deals heroin; brother August is a mute. It’s a blueprint for disaster and dissolution. Instead, gloriously, Eli triumphs.
We’re in 1980s Brisbane. Summer heat slams down. The young hero (and, my word, he is one) lives with his calamitous family in the outer suburbs, “marooned survivors of the great ship hauling Australia’s lower-class social shit-heap”. Daring and florid, just like the book.
Eli has no illusions, but abundant dreams. One is journalism. Another is breaking into Boggo Road Gaol for Christmas to see his mum. He’s bolshie and brave, gutter-mouthed and glowing with goodness.
It’s a story in which males bark at, cuff and sometimes care for one another. “(Y)ou leave this bullshit behind, you hear me?” There’s nothing soft in Eli’s world: he’s surrounded by squalor, brutishness, dereliction. Politeness means saying “sweet” to your local drug dealer; a heroin syringe kills an unborn child; revelation comes with a shocking mutilation.
But a succession of jewelled scenes – fishing for flathead, a cricket board game – become small epiphanies in the protagonist’s progress. He falls in love; plummets fathoms deep. It’s enchanting.
A plot summary? Don’t be silly. I’ll mention a hidden room with a red telephone, and a bloodily-lost digit. A block of cash lands on a doorstep. There are multiple metamorphoses, mostly for the better. A celebratory ceremony brings a totally ludicrous, totally gut-clutching flight up a clock tower. I mustn’t forget the (ahem) severed head.
The numerous homilies mostly work. So do most of Eli’s visionary proclamations. There are some excellent laconic levels: a framed painting of Christ gets a nod of approval: “so cool under pressure, that guy”. Likewise the failed suicide who tries to gas himself with his old two-stroke lawnmower.
Dalton does go on a fair bit. But so does his endearing young hero, and that’s just great. “Stay sweet, Eli Bell!” calls Shelley, the afflicted neighbour. He does, and that’s great as well.
BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE, by Trent Dalton (HarperCollins, $35)