Hey guys my name's Trent Dalton I'm the author of this, Boy Swallows Universe.
It's a coming-of-age tale, a work of fiction, that is straight from my heart
and soul. It's about a boy named Eli Bell, a little beautiful Aussie boy who's 12
years old who receives a strange message on a red telephone in a secret room
beneath his house that tells him he must go break into Boggo Road Women's Prison
a notorious Australian prison, to save his mum's life on Christmas Day.
This book's about 20 cm by 10cm. I swear to God it carries my
heart and it carries my soul and I'd be so honored if you read it. So, I'm here in
Waterstones Piccadilly, the most amazing and you know staggering kind of bookshop.
I just want to share with you three books that inspired my book, Boy Swallows
Universe. The first being Papillon by Henri Charriere
I've got to tell you about my old man. He's a rogue, he's a rogue of a man
who wore blue singlets and he was covered in tats and basically he slept
on a high jump mattress that he got doing community service at a local
primary school. He'd wake up he'd roll himself 20 cigarettes of drum tobacco,
he'd lay them out across his high jump mattress and he'd proceed to smoke those
cigarettes and only read books. That's what he did all day. We would move from
house to house in this little area of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. And my old
man would leave mountains of books at all these houses we lived in. I'd say dad
what about all the books he's like Trent I've read them you don't understand
they're for other people now. He was a beautiful guy and one of the first
things he handed me was this and it blew my tiny mind at about 12
years old. It's all about prison escape and it's all about hope in dark places
and that's exactly what my book's about. And every time, I've got a French copy of
this at home it sits on a kind of a wood cupboard in my house and I sit it
up there to remind myself of my old man, who's gone now, and he never got to see
the fact that I wrote a book as well that might one day sit on a shelf beside
this and it means absolutely everything to me. All right guys I'm down in the
fiction section now because I want to tell you about this book right here.
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole. I've got to go right back, I'm gonna go right back to
the earliest memory I have. I'm three years old. I'm in a yellow and brown
t-shirt, I'm on a brown leather lounge. I look at my thumb, there's a freckle on it
and that's right here. I turn to my left and there's a man who looks a bit like
John Lennon circa Help! And he's got red hair and he's tattooed and he's
muscular and I turn to him and I say I love you dad and then he
turns to me and he sort of ruffles my hair and he says I love you too mate but
I'm not your dad. This is my earliest memory and that was a guy that my mum
had fallen in love with who happened to be a dangerously successful heroin
dealer across South East Queensland. Now I love that guy so much
though because he was like the first father figure in my life. Taught me how
to throw a football, taught me how to love my mum. And he went down for ten
years into Boggo Road Men's Prison. The reason I love this book is because Steve
Toltz writes about rogues like that in the most loving way that is everything
that my book as well says, it's this idea that you
can love people who have done bad things. And that a kid can take love from
unusual places. And also a kid will take love wherever he he can get it and I
think Steve Toltz understands that. Check it out A Fraction of the Whole. It's
insanely readable and so clever. Now I'm down in the basement I'm in the Travel
section of all places because I want to take you to Dust Bowl, depression-era
America with this guy. And oh boy, this means a lot to me. The last two pages of
this book, the last two pages changed my life.
Those last two pages are about an idea that you are not allowed to waver from
your decency. That's very important it has been very important in my life. My
life has been filled with people going to prison, people falling to drug
addiction, falling to alcoholism. And this book tells you that you're not allowed
to let your situation make you become a dickhead. And it's an amazing lesson
that John Steinbeck has given all of us. There's an act of generosity in the last
two pages that kind of change the way I think about humans that's how
big this book is to me. I'd love you to read it and then I'd love you to read
Boy Swallows Universe because so much of this is in that book. Thanks for
listening to my three books it's been a joy sharing these kind of really
inspirational people with you.