Trent Dalton on his Netflix series of Boy Swallows Universe
Well hellooooo my Streets of Your Towners! We have a visit from a familiar voice on Streets of Your Town this week. There’s only a couple of people who have been featured on the podcast more than once and Trent Dalton is one of them!
With the Netflix series adaptation of Trent Dalton’s first breakthrough best-seller novel Boy Swallows Universe hitting number one in Australia and top ten in the US, it’s time to revisit this Brisbane born and bred talent.
We featured Trent on Streets of Your Town four years ago (geez, where did that time go!) in my special series 2 The Journo Project, where he gave insights into his progression from journo to author.
And now it’s time to celebrate how his gritty but hopeful representations of the wrong side of town in his novels have thrust beloved Brissie icons such as the Story Bridge onto the worldwide map.
Dalton knows this underworld because he grew up in it, and Trent tells us on Streets of Your Town how he never could have envisioned as a young child how a story he wrote could one day make it onto screens around the country and around the globe.
Trent tells us how his days as a journalist for The Courier Mail have prepared him for the transition from growing up in the struggling northern suburbs to going on the red carpet for the premiere of the Netflix adaptation of his novel Boy Swallows Universe.
“It’s a long way from the Bracken Ridge shops Nance—it’s surreal,” Trent says.
“It's the most amazing thing that I collected all that stuff both from my childhood and from my journo years and just threw it into that book and no way in my wildest imagination would I have thought that it would end up here and end up with this kind of epic Netflix series.
“It’s deeply unsettling, but it’s also the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me.”
If you haven’t watched Boy Swallows Universe on Netflix yet, then the question now is why? It’s a brilliant adaptation of Dalton’s novel, that stays true to the spirit of what he created.
He’s thrilled with the way Brisbane is now presented on the big screen.
“The thing I keep thinking about Nance is when I was a kid, particularly in Bracken Ridge and just everything’s gone south and you’re turning on the telly and you’re not seeing your world presented in one bit,” Trent says.
“If you are seeing Australian culture presented to you, it’s definitely not Brisbane based and it’s definitely not based in the outer suburbs of Brisbane. And I just would’ve, I don't know, I would’ve dreamed of seeing a show like this on telly when I was 14, 15, 16. I would’ve just lived for something like it, and I get really proud. That’s what I keep thinking.
“All my books are about this notion that what if you could make Brisbane feel as important as New York or that the stories are just as valid as London stories or just as valid as Spain stories. It’s just like, yeah, it’s possible.
“And I just love that for this time, Netflix went, yeah, we think that this might go across the world. And it’s like, that’s incredible to me.
“And what they’re saying is it doesn’t matter where it’s set, what they’re saying is what matters is the stories, and we’ll go to that location if you give us a strong enough story.”
Trent hopes that his personal story and the overlap that makes with his novels, gives people an insight into his relentless optimism. That it actually comes from a dark place. He’s amazed how his stories while focussed on Brisbane characters and landscapes, can speak to people around the globe.
“I cop all kinds of stuff for my optimism in my stories, and I just try and tell people, please believe me,” he says.
“Please don’t think it’s just blind optimism. Please don’t mistake my optimism for naivety. I absolutely understand the darkness, but where does that get anyone? If I just wrote a misery memoir where things are still sad for people I love, but I don’t know what does that offer anyone?
"I get messages from people across the world telling me that they read that book and found the message through Eli Bell of the just relentless humour and relentless positivity in the face of utter darkness and hopelessness. And that’s true. You can do that. You can think that way.
“All the stuff I write about in Boys Swallows Universe, domestic abuse, worse than ever in Brisbane. Issues of families battling and falling through the cracks - worse than ever in Brisbane. So it’s like, I just feel really proud that this story’s hit. Netflix is a pretty cheap streaming service. I reckon a lot of people have that thing. A lot of people can access this, and it’s just very powerful for people out in the suburbs to perhaps see themselves in this story and people in certain communities across the world who might see themselves in that story. It’s very cool.”
He hopes his success inspires other writers to start their training in journalism - his first love.
“I’m always telling them, please remember the job doesn’t pay well. You’ll cop a lot of crap from people. You’ll get a lot of people swearing at you, but I promise you it’s the best job in the world,” he says.
“As Eli Bell knows full well, all he wants to do is go work for the Courier Mail. And that’s a simple dream, but it’s a very powerful one, for me it was too.
“And I just love that the show champions the role of journalism as the very powerful job that it is. You know that, well, it gets ragged on all the time, but Eli Bell, and as I do, truly believes in the job and the way it’s changed Brisbane.
“Journalism changed the face of this city. It turned around all the stuff that Eli Bell’s caught in, it was journalism that changed that, and then the government followed the journalists because they had to. I get very touched that there’s a small little tribute to the journos in that story.
“It’s a hope story. It’s a love story. And it’s about the idea that anyone who’s fallen through the cracks sometimes all they’ve got is the hope.”
It’s also a tribute to his Mum and all the women who are trapped in domestic violence situations, that there can be hope.
“That’s a woman who’s done time, that’s a woman who’s met a share of arseholes, and that’s a woman who’s been through everything Nance and I just cannot believe what she’ll be feeling to see this show that’s kind of an extension of her own life, be seen by all these people,” he says.
“I get extremely emotional when I think about that and those words, ‘it gets good’, are true. It doesn’t always, I absolutely recognise it’s not always for everyone it doesn’t get good. Sometimes it gets really, really sad, but I just feel really, really lucky that in my little universe it got a little bit good.”
And in the latest Trent news, his third novel Love Stories is being adapted into a world premiere stage show for the Brisbane Festival! The stories from Trent just keep on coming and keep on getting adapted into their next incarnation to reach a whole new audience.
The same team that brought Boy Swallows Universe to the stage (before the Netflix adaptation) will bring Love Stories from page to stage—Sam Strong and Tim McGarry. I loved the stage adaptation—seeing all the Brisbane icons I’d grown up with on the big stage ready for anyone around the world to see. Combined with Trent’s storytelling—just a sublime experience all round.
So I can’t wait to see Love Stories on stage in September—see you then!
Thank you Streets of Your Towners for your support! It’s been a tough old month in the Haxton Chateau—Mum and Dad got COVID and my son got a hip fracture playing cricket! My life has become a whirlwind of medical appointments and trying to find time for making a living and making my podcasts for you my supportive tribe somewhere in-between. I’m hoping we’ve turned the corner now—so back into the thick of it!
Thanks for your support—it keeps me going during the tough times that’s for sure.
Nance—The Wandering Journo