The bestselling novel that has taken Australia, and the world, by storm. Winner of Book of the Year at the 2019 Indie Book Awards, winner of a record four Australian Book Industry Awards in 2019, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award, and winner of the 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, NSW Premier's Literary Awards

Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and understand what it means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way—not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.

But now Eli's life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he's about to meet the father he doesn't remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum, come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the girl of his dreams.

A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will hear all year.

Reviews:

'Boy Swallows Universe is a wonderful surprise: sharp as a drawer full of knives in terms of subject matter; unrepentantly joyous in its child's-eye view of the world; the best literary debut in a month of Sundays.' The Australian

'Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak.' Washington Post

'This thrilling novel' New York Times Book Review

'Marvelously plot-rich ... filled with beautifully lyric prose ...At one point Eli wonders if he is good. The answer is "yes," every bit as good as this exceptional novel.' Booklist

Listening Length

16 hours and 42 minutes
Author

Trent Dalton
Narrator

Stig Wemyss
Audible release date

20 June 2018
Language

English
Publisher

HarperAudio
ASIN

B07DJWK1Y4
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 42 minutes
Author	Trent Dalton
Narrator	Stig Wemyss
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	20 June 2018
Publisher	HarperAudio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07DJWK1Y4
Best Sellers Rank	159 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 1 in Biographical Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 3 in Coming of Age Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 5 in Biographical Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

5 star		70%
4 star		20%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Pamela Mawbey

thumbs down for BSU

Reviewed in Australia on 18 November 2018

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I did not like this book at all and would not recommend it to anybody. By page 12 it felt 'contrived' and I wanted to stop reading it then. But I had to read it for a book club, but only managed to go half way. After our discussion, I then had a quick sneak peak at the end of the book but that did not make me feel any friendlier towards it. I did not like the matter. Found it tedious and heavy going. My working life has involved dealing with crims and druggies and I'm over it. Not a novelty for me. I thought the author was trying to capitalise on having rubbed shoulders with one of the country's most notorious criminals, but not wanting to sound like he was big noting himself about it. The best part of this book in my view was its captivating creative colourful cover.

30 people found this helpful

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Simply Magnificent

Reviewed in Australia on 13 March 2019

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Well, what can I say, but Trent Dalton, you have left me speechless! I've had Boy Swallows Universe on my shelf for several months now, not wanting to pick it up, afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype. It lives up to it, and more!

It's the coming of age tale of Eli, growing up in Brisbane's western suburbs, raised by drug dealers. We follow Eli and his brother August, through all the bad things life could throw at them, yet there are a lot of positives in their lives too. Living in Brisbane I'm familiar with many of the locations in this book, and knowing that it is semi-autobiographical, it really comes to life.

This book will make you laugh, it will make you cry. It is simply magnificent. Thankyou Trent Dalton!

12 people found this helpful

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Annette Lawless

A little bit too long winded.

Reviewed in Australia on 17 January 2019

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I’m torn between loving & hating Boy Swallows Universe. I did enjoy the writing style but on the other hand I felt it became a little too bogged down in it’s descriptiveness (if that’s a word?). I feel the characters would still have been developed enough in a shorter amount of time. I think that’s why, for me,the lead up to the conclusion would have been a bit more exciting if we had of gotten to it a bit sooner. I almost gave up on it as I just wanted it to finish about 3/4 of the way through. Also, I found aspects of the ending a bit silly compared to how the story was told at the beginning of the book.

15 people found this helpful

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Cheryl Hannah

A Grim and Miserable Story

Reviewed in Australia on 30 June 2021

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I found very little to enjoy in this story, and I have pondered why it is a best seller. Yes, it is cleverly written, and yes, it captures the miserable zeitgeist of kids reared in poverty with few life chances, but that does not in itself make for a laudable book. By the time I had finished reading it, I wondered why I had bothered and had it not been the current ANU Alumni book club choice, I probably would not have done so. Disgusting, grim violence with a dash of magical thinking is not in and of itself a recipe for a waste-of-time book (think Kafka or Camus), but Boy Swallows Universe is not in that league. I was particularly disappointed in how shallow, one-dimensional, and all-round irritating the women characters in this novel turned out to be - the stupid yet worshipped mother, the evil Asian drug queen, the gullible women do-gooders...so boring and such predictable sexist/racist tropes. Had I had my green pen out to edit the manuscript, my overall comment would have been, "could do much better than this".

4 people found this helpful

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Jade St Clair Scatterbooker

Heartbreaking, but triumphant, Australian novel

Reviewed in Australia on 28 January 2020

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Boy Swallows Universe is the debut Australian best seller and multi award winner of 2018. I’m not usually a fan of stickers on book covers, but that certainly is an impressive number of awards there!

Set in the suburbs of Brisbane in 1985, Eli Bell is struggling to grow up in the midst of a very complicated life. His mum is a junkie, his step-father is a heroin dealer, his brother is mute, his absent dad is an alcoholic, his best friend is a notorious criminal, and his pen pal is the ex sergeant at arms of the Rebels motorcycle club.

All of a sudden, tragedy strikes, and Eli’s life becomes a lot more complicated. He needs all the help he can get from his brother, his friends, his father who has suddenly landed in his life, and an attractive young (but still far too old for Eli) journalist called Caitlin Spies.

Boy Swallows Universe is a heartbreaking, but triumphant, Australian novel that reveals the true horrors lurking underneath the surface of most suburbs, I suspect. I’m still reeling from the wild ride of the last few chapters and Dalton shines through as a simply brilliant storyteller. If you are in the middle of reading this book and are perhaps thinking that there is a bit too much description and it jumps around a bit too much, just wait til the end where all will be revealed.

5/5 stars!

3 people found this helpful

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Jewels

Girl loses herself

Reviewed in Australia on 30 December 2018

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Having lived in many suburbs of Brisbane over 20 years I felt like I could have been part of this story but even with my crazy imagination I didn't have any idea of what was coming. I recognised the suburb names and places but had absolutely no clue where I was being taken from one chapter of this astonishing journey to the next. I get tired of reading review headlines that a book is "unputdownable" as I've put plenty of them down never to pick up again but Trent's story is a beautiful exception. Inspiring. Troubling. Heartwarming. Human. Trent, please keep sharing your gift with the world and taking your readers to places they never knew existed - here or there.

9 people found this helpful

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Neal Ames

Boy Swallows Universe swallows man reading it

Reviewed in Australia on 9 May 2022

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If I didn't love Tim Winton's Cloudstreet so much Boy Swallows Universe would now be my most special book ever. Is it boring of me to say that the character construction was amazing. And that is the most important component of any great story, the way that the characters are built on, constructed, so that their journey becomes your journey, our journey. I felt that I was along for the ride, and what a ride. The characters can be whimsical, and sometimes unbelievable, but that just makes the journey even more enjoyable. This really is a work of art. Having spent so many years living in South-east Queensland I can relate to most of the places, but you don't need to have local knowledge, to really love the story. Boy Swallows Universe just made it into my top six books of all time, and the five above it are all Russian writers from the 1800's

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Top reviews from other countries

SueKich

Caveat emptor: Buyer beware.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2019

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“…when the clandestine heroin operation truth meets the Von Trapp family values mirage...”

Whilst this memoir-cum-novel from Australian journalist Trent Dalton definitely has its good points, I feel it might have been oversold by enthusiastic fans and puff merchants. I had been promised an immersive experience but it took me well over a hundred pages to follow just what was going on and to become invested in the characters. I did get there eventually and it does become an absorbing read.

Set in mid-80s Brisbane and recounted by 13-year old narrator Eli Bell, this semi-autobiographical debut tells the story of a lost father, a mute and much-loved older brother August who writes notes in the air, a heroin dealer for a stepfather, a worshipped mother in jail and Eli's babysitter the notorious criminal and legendary escape artist Slim Halliday. Much of it is harrowing but there are genuine moments of pathos and even humour. The ending is grisly but gripping.

The writing is outstanding and one can certainly detect the author’s journalistic background: shorn of frilly adjectives and devoid of adverbs, there’s a cleanness to the prose that I really relished. Dalton might let you know the colour, or the size or the shape of something but the most descriptive he gets in almost five hundred pages is to tell us that a small bird has ‘peppercorn eyes'.

The writing control is total even if the whole thing could have been usefully pruned by, oh, a third. So a kind of overwrought but in many respects underplayed account of Trent Dalton’s bizarre early life. Recommended with reservations. 3.5*

4 people found this helpful

S Payne

A nice Australian coming of age story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 December 2019

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‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara is probably one of my favourite books in the whole world and someone recently told me that if I loved ‘A Little Life’, I would also love ‘Boy Swallows Universe’, so I grabbed a copy straight away.

We follow 12-year-old Eli Bell who lives with his mum, stepdad and brother in Brisbane in the 1980’s. We start with Eli’s childhood seeming relatively normal but we soon learn that his brother Gus is an elective mute, his parents are drug dealers and his babysitter is a convicted criminal who escaped from jail several times. Eli’s world changes when his stepdad is caught by his boss dealing drugs on the side and is dragged off by henchmen whilst they are enjoying a family dinner. Following that, Eli’s mum is sent to jail and Eli and Gus are sent to live with his depressed and drunken father. Eli wants to grow up as a good person and a journalist and we follow him as he navigates his life in between the criminal world he was raised in and the world in which he wants to live.

This is the first Trent Dalton book I have read and, overall, I enjoyed it. The characters were well defined and I liked them immediately which helped me get invested in the story. Although this isn’t based on a true story, the characters are based on people that Dalton knows, so I think this helps bring them to life. The writing style is easy to follow and flows well but the pace of the book got a little bit slow for me. I think it started and finished well but it lost its way somewhere in the middle.
This is a nice coming of age story with memorable characters that I found myself rooting for.

Although this was not as good as ‘A Little Life’ for me, it was a solid story with an emotional flow and I will search out more Trent Dalton books.

7 people found this helpful

Donny Rock

Morality be damned

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2019

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Extraordinary book! There's an undue acceptance of drug dealing and usage; of violence and indolence and of the results of evil activity. And I am far from being a prude. Some of the story is absurd, e.g. breaking into prison. I feel the author tries too hard at times to be funny e.g. the implication of special powers. The central character does not seem to change over the six year span of the book. He doesn't learn from his mistakes. At times he seems too mature in his approach and at other times, too naive when he should know better. I wanted to like this book after reading the reviews but I could not get over the non-condemnation of blatant illegality and immorality.

6 people found this helpful

Renae Lucas-Hall

Wonderful writing style and a superb plot with fascinating characters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 January 2019

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I was captivated by Dalton's humorous yet brilliant writing style. In three words this book is profound, endearing, brutal. Expect to be shocked by acts of merciless violence but this is absolutely necessary for this story to be told accurately. Have no fear, this is equally balanced with charming displays of humanity and benevolence and this will move you beyond belief and keep you hooked until the very last page. I have no doubt in my mind, every reader will be rooting for the teenage protagonist Eli Bell as he touches your heart, mind and soul.

I have to admit I felt a tight and aching knot in my stomach as I read the first half of the book. It was filled with too much violence, pain and anger. These pages reminded me of the people I knew long ago in Australia who took pride in the fact they were bullies and others who were constantly chasing the dragon as they endured a life totally dependent on drug addiction. But this knot slowly unravelled as the pieces of the love puzzle so beautifully fell into place for Eli and Caitlyn. This is definitely a must-read story and I'm looking forward to reading more books by this talented Aussie author in the future.

3 people found this helpful

Stephanie Zia

Speechless

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 September 2020

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Where to begin? Where to end? All I can do is repeat what's been said below, taken from the above, and confirm that you really won't be the same before after you've read this. Also, a first for any book: it changed my reading style, usually a slow reader, I was literally carried along by the words. Extraordinary.

"Joyous. Simply joyous. I hugged myself as I read it. My heart raced, swelled, burst; my eyes leaked tears; my stomach ached from laughter. Boy Swallows Universe is--I can't think of a word more apt--magical. This vibrant, vital, altogether miraculous coming-of-age novel marks the debut of an exquisitely gifted storyteller. . . and what's more, it's transformative: After reading Trent Dalton's book, you won't be the same as you were before."--A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window"

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