Eli and his semi-autistic brother Gus are squaring up,terrified,to try to defend their mother when the man in the grey coat reveals his true colours. He is Alex Bermudez,Sargeant-at-Arms for the Queensland chapter of the Rebels motorcycle club,whose gift is a thank you for the anonymous letters Eli sent him while he languished in solitary confinement.
Having pulped Teddy's nose and seen off the other two aggressors,Alex finally delivers his poorly wrapped gift ("bikies aren't known for their gift-wrapping"). It's a Dictaphone,onto which Alex then delivers some choice reminiscences of his life of violent crime. The scoop is Eli's golden ticket into the world of newspaper journalism.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful universe of Trent Dalton,whose first work of fiction is,without exaggeration,the best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade.
Australian fiction and screenwriting have long been obsessed – to a fault – with the lives of scumbags and criminals. The genre often tends towards gratuitous sensationalism and it's a rare talent – Tim Winton and Robert Drewe both come to mind – who can lie in the gutter and still describe the stars.
Dalton is a writer in the same league. His dialogue is every bit as funny and accurate as Winton's,his prose just as evocative,and he's better at wrapping up the ending. The last 100 pages ofBoy Swallows Universe propel you like an express train to a conclusion that is profound and complex and unashamedly commercial. There are shades of Raymond Chandler in the final confrontation with the town's bleached and wealthy benefactor whose cement bunker conceals a chilling secret. And even a nod to John Buchan.
Before all that,we get young Eli's growth to adulthood,from the 10-year-old child of trainee drug dealers to the pinnacle of journalistic achievement – a job onThe Courier-Mail. The book's surreal title and its chapter headings derive from the gruff news editor's maxim that any story of importance can be summarised in a three-word headline.
Dalton's novel takes flight in a multitude of unexpected directions. Eli's journey,guided by an ex-con called Slim,folds time on itself,flirting with magic while rooted in realism. The story is peppered with wordplay,with crude jokes and gems of literary criticism – from Conrad to Omar Khayyam. Along the way,we discover Gus's mode of talking without speaking and listen in on what seems to be a telephone connection to a parallel universe.