{"id":181573,"date":"2025-10-01T03:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181573\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T03:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:19:08","slug":"beautiful-and-full-of-hope-and-love-trent-daltons-life-in-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181573\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Beautiful and full of hope and love\u2019: Trent Dalton\u2019s life in books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional<\/a>, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: Australian author of Gravity Let Me Go<\/a>, Trent Dalton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book I wish I\u2019d written<\/p>\n

The Lord of the Rings. Because it was my dad\u2019s favourite book. What kid wouldn\u2019t want to be responsible for writing his dad\u2019s favourite book. My beautiful old man died before he got to read my novel Boy Swallows Universe. I like to think it would have been his second-favourite book.<\/p>\n

Everyone should read<\/p>\n

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck because the final two pages of the book feature an act of humanity so profound that you become convinced that every single person on this planet deserves your compassion, your kindness, your understanding and your support.<\/p>\n

The book I want to be buried with<\/p>\n

Elizabeth the Elephant \u2013\u00a0a picture book my wife, Fiona Franzmann, wrote when she was eight years old. It\u2019s beautiful and full of hope and love, not unlike the book\u2019s author.<\/p>\n

The first book I remember reading by myself<\/p>\n

Storm Boy\u00a0by Colin Thiele. The book reminded me of myself. Just replace the pelican with a Steeden rugby league football and that was me. The author lived 30 minutes from my house in Bracken Ridge, on the outskirts of Brisbane. I remember thinking, \u201cWow, if a guy in Dayboro can write about the worlds he knows about, then maybe a kid from Bracken Ridge might be allowed to write about the worlds he knows!\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFrom left to right: the book Dalton thinks we all need to read; the book he first remembers reading by himself; and the book that made him cry.
\nUtopia or dystopia<\/p>\n

Utopia. But I\u2019d do that great thing that I love in science fiction where the utopia soon reveals itself to be a dystopia. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Fiction or nonfiction<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent 20 years as a journalist writing hard facts in nonfiction journalism in search of some truth that I might discover about myself and where I came from. I\u2019ve spent six years now writing novels and I\u2019ve learned far more truths about myself in fiction than I ever did in journalism.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a crime against language to \u2026<\/p>\n

Simply liken the protagonist\u2019s physical appearance to a well-known movie star. I see this in thriller books sometimes and it\u2019s an immediate buzzkill. \u201cSarah always thought Detective Hill had a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford \u2026 in his Peter Weir years \u2026 just prior to Working Girl \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The book that made me cry<\/p>\n

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. She never over-cooks her emotion. She bakes it just right and it warms every piece of my heart.<\/p>\n

The book that made me laugh<\/p>\n

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Not only was the man wise beyond compare, he was funny as all heck. One minute you\u2019re reading the most profound insight into relationships and society, the next you\u2019re howling over a sketch of a butthole.<\/p>\n

The book character I identify with most<\/p>\n

Noah Cork. He\u2019s the lead character in my latest novel, Gravity Let Me Go. He\u2019s everything about myself that I hate the most and he\u2019s everything I\u2019m most proud of.<\/p>\n

Encounter with an author<\/p>\n

I was once at a book signing table at the Perth Writers Festival. I\u2019d been signing books for an hour when I looked up and saw Markus Zusak standing in front of me with a copy of Boy Swallows Universe. He had waited patiently in line for an hour to get his copy signed. I was never more honoured by a gesture. That man is the sweetest writer in the world.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFrom left to right: Trent Dalton\u2019s latest novel which includes the character he identifies with most; the book that made him laugh; and the book he\u2019s reading right now.
\nBest thing about reading<\/p>\n

You read a passage and you feel an emotion \u2013 sadness, joy, grief, love \u2013 and thousands of other people, strangers often, read that same passage and feel exactly that same emotion. Suddenly all those thousands of people are deeply connected by something beautiful: words.<\/p>\n

Best place to read<\/p>\n

Reading\u00a0The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton in a Queenstown cottage after a ski and a supreme pizza with a glass of New Zealand white wine by a fire and then you gently fall to sleep and have a dream about\u00a0The Luminaries. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m reading right now\u00a0<\/p>\n

Poor Fellow, My Country by Xavier Herbert. I just picked up a hardback copy from a Brisbane antique bookshop, Archives Bookshop. I\u2019m slightly intimidated by the weight of it, both physical and philosophical. A friend just told me that the late, great Barry Humphries once called that book, \u201cPoor Fellow, My Reader\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gravity Let Me Go by Trent Dalton (HarperCollins, $38) is available to purchase at Unity Books.<\/a> Trent Dalton is appearing live in a one-off event in Auckland on October 15<\/a>; and Trent Dalton\u2019s Love Stories is playing at The Civic from October 15\u201319.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75,41877],"class_list":{"0":"post-181573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-the-spinoff-books-confessional"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}