I enjoyed walking around and stopping on Brisbane’s bridges. They are modern and elegant, and as they cross the river that winds through the heart of the city, they offer unexpected angles and light. From my hotel on the South Bank, I had to cross a bridge to get to King George Square and Brisbane City Hall. The first stone of this impressive monument, combining the pediment of the Rome’s Pantheon and the Campanile of St. Mark’s in Venice, was laid in 1917. Undoubtedly inspired by the English imperial taste for “Pomp and Circumstance,” the building stands out a little from the rest of the city, which has a much more contemporary style. I went inside and visited the Museum of Brisbane. Unfortunately, there were no more tickets available to go up the tower and see the clock mechanism.
I was delighted to find City Hall and its famous clock tower in the final scenes of the novel “Boy Swallows Universe”, Australian journalist Trent Dalton’s debut novel. The excellent mini-series adaptation on Netflix also gives pride of place to this iconic monument in the capital of Queensland.
However, most of the novel takes place far from the prestigious City Hall. The two brothers, Eli and Gus Bell, and their parents are indeed very impressed by the invitation they have received to attend a gala evening where Gus will receive an award.
Most of this semi-autobiographical novel takes place in Darra, a dilapidated suburb in the south of Brisbane. Eli Bell is twelve years old. He lives with Gus, his older brother, their mother Frankie, and Kyle, her partner. Kyle is a small-time drug dealer who wants to go it alone. It’s a mistake he will pay dearly for: his former bosses come to take him away and make him disappear, after cutting off one of Eli’s fingers. Their mother, a former drug addict, ends up in prison. The two brothers find themselves living with their alcoholic father.
And yet, this is far from a miserabilist novel. On the contrary, Eli, who dreams of becoming a journalist, is fearless and investigates to understand what happened to his stepfather. He does everything he can to get into the Courier-Mail, the daily newspaper for which the beautiful Caitlyn Spies writes, a journalist with whom he falls in love. Following the advice of Slim, their former babysitter, who has escaped from prison several times, he achieves the opposite feat: getting into Boggo Road women’s prison to wish his mother a Merry Christmas. Eli’s sometimes incredible adventures take place under the protective eye of Gus, his older brother, who refuses to speak but seems to be able to predict the future and communicates by tracing words in the air with his finger.
I really enjoyed this coming-of-age novel, which is sometimes burlesque, often tender, and paints a picture of Australia far removed from beaches and tanned surfers, but which highlights the humor and resilience of this country.
