Real-life and fiction intertwine for Trent Dalton
If you spoke to Trent Dalton in the park with his daughters, you might not realise what a dark background he has.
Trent is full of spark and compliments but as a child his role models were drug dealers, convicted jail escapees and a father overly immersed in books.
At first blush, you also wouldn’t know that he has investigated dozens of tragedies including the aftermath of the Daniel Morcombe case.
Trent Dalton is a writer for the Weekend Australian Magazine and has recently published a book Boy Swallows Universe with Harper & Collins, which will be sold worldwide under a recently signed contract.
His book incorporates his own biography with his journalism reportage and fiction. The product is a dark crime story about a 9th grader and his heroin addicted mother.
“It’s really a story about how I was, as a ninth grader, and I was raised by some pretty strange folks,” Trent said.
“The kid in the book, his name is Eli Bell, he’s a dreamer. He falls in love with his imagination.”
In his twenties, Trent realised how eccentric the role models in his life were. When he was investigating Australian figures in the bowels of the Courier Mail’s archives, he curiously searched for his childhood babysitter, Slim Halliday.
“There were five manilla folders on him, each as thick as Bill Lawry’s cricket bat,” he said. “They were plastered with headlines like ‘the Houdini of Boggo Road’ and ‘the Taxi Driver Killer’.
“When it comes time for Eli Bell to bust Boggo Road [Gaol] who better to go to than Arthur Slim Halliday, who knows everything about getting in and out of prison.”
This wasn’t the only convict he held dear.
“My mum fell in love with a South East Queensland drug dealer. I loved that man, he went away to prison,” he said.
After the relationship fell apart, Trent’s mother disappeared for some time. Trent and his brothers moved in with his father to a series of housing commission properties in Bracken Ridge.
Trent’s father was more than the average avid reader. He would read from dusk till dawn while smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes. When they moved houses his father would leave piles of books behind saying ‘I have read them, the next person can have them.’
Imagination is the difference between Boys Swallows Universe and Weekend Australian articles.
Trent says you have to use “a large open heart” and show empathy, but it gets harder even as you practice. When investigating deaths of young children and the impact on the family, you have to realise it’s all real.
“What gets deeper is your respect and compassion for that family, and you care for them afterwards,” he said. “I lose sleep at night.”
“It’s your job to let them know exactly what you are about to do. You can actually be there for them, I know it sounds strange but you can write something that doesn’t make their situation worse.
“I have actually started calling people up and going ‘look I am thinking about writing this in the story I just wanted you to know because I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and realise I have deepened your trauma.’”
Through all of this, Trent has learned how to be a father and role model for his daughters. He has the same respect for his young family as he does for the family of Daniel Morcombe.
“My whole life got complicated dead-set in that whole regard of self-endanger when I had kids, that’s a fact,” he said. “It would take a lot for me to do that stuff now because I love my kids a lot and I’m doubly amazed at journos that do have kids and [partners] that go out there and risk their lives.”
