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Emma Rusher: Some writers have that rare gift of sharing life's darkness, tempered with light, hope, and love, and today's guest is one of those. He's become one of the most-beloved and cherished writers around the world to have come out of Australia in recent years. He's the bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Love Stories, and many more. He's a multi award-winning journalist. And today, Trent Dalton joins us to discuss Gravity Let Me Go, and the new experience of narrating his own story. Trent Dalton, welcome.

Trent Dalton: Emma, it's great to be here. Thanks for taking the time.

ER: Oh, we're thrilled to have you here at Audible, and I'm just going to run through a couple of top questions that the whole team have for you to share with our listeners.

TD: Oh, it's a thrill to be doing it. And Audible's been there with me the whole way, so it's a pleasure to be here answering these questions.

ER: Trent Dalton, for listeners who aren't familiar, can you walk us through Gravity Let Me Go?

TD: Gravity Let Me Go is a marriage story, first and foremost, but it's buried inside a murder story. It's the story of a journalist named Noah Cork, who becomes so obsessed with the true crime scoop of his lifetime, Emma, that he starts to almost overlook or almost is in danger of completely missing an even bigger scoop, and that's the one that's unfolding in his very own home.

It's a story about communication between a husband and a wife—and lack thereof. It's a story about correspondence between a murderer and a journalist, and it's the story about the suburbs. It's a story about these suburbs in Australia that I'm absolutely at once in love with and fascinated by. I'm deeply, deeply fascinated with the darkness lays, that dwells, beneath the Great Australian Dream, and that's kind of what Gravity Let Me Go is all about. It's about my neighborhood; it's about the things I see every day and the things every Australian sees every day.

ER: You've said it's your most personal novel yet, and the lead character is certainly very similar to you. We see you in that character. He's a journalist, he's living in the suburbs of Brisbane, Australia, with his family, with two teenage girls. This is all sounding very familiar to your life story, and I was curious...

TD: Yeah: tick, tick.

ER: Yeah. I was curious about what did you have to let go of to write Noah's story and, maybe, what did you have to hold on to, as well, to tell this story?

TD: Emma, that's a beautiful question, and every writer does need to let go of pride sometimes. The biggest thing I had to let go in this is pride. It's funny, I know it sounds funny for someone to say, "Oh, it's the most personal novel I've written." When Boy Swallows Universe, my first book was so real, it was all about my childhood. It was also about my beautiful mom who went through some real rough stuff, and these, kind of, two dads that were raising me when I was a boy. But even that story, it's a real romanticised version of who I was back then and it's the kid, Eli Bell, in Boy Swallows Universe, is really the kid I would've loved to have been. In Gravity Let Me Go, Noah Cork is the man I am; there's just no doubt about it. You're so right. He's a father of two teenage girls.

I don't know if you're aware, Emma, but some Australian husbands find it difficult to work out their place—even inside their own home—and that's something I think about all the time. Noah is a man who feels a little untethered with the world, and that could absolutely be leveled at me. He's a man who is completely in love with his wife and two daughters, but he's tragically and dangerously in love with his day job, which is writing.

ER: Yeah, chasing that scoop.

TD: And what happens to a man. That's it; that's it. I mean, I can't even tell you, Emma, the places I've gone to follow a scoop in journalism. It gives me chills sometimes. I'm talking walking down the basement with dangerous men. And I'm talking about the reason I wrote Boy is me being fascinated with dangerous Brisbane men who were surrounding us. I'm talking killers and very intriguing human beings and me just getting up close with those people because I want to keep hearing their stories. And I wanted to write something about story addiction.

And Noah just, he's so obsessed with this correspondence he's having with a murderer, he can't even see the danger that he's putting himself in but also the dangers he's putting his own family in. And I don't know, I'm not saying I've ever lived that to that extent, but I've certainly been guilty of that—putting stories above the things that actually really matter. And throughout the book, Noah is going to have to really reconcile with his own failings, and that's where that pride thing comes in. This is why your question's so great. I really believe a writer is here on this planet to not look at... No good art ever comes from self-flattery, put it that way, and I really believe that.

"Some Australian husbands find it difficult to work out their place—even inside their own home—and that's something I think about all the time."

And I've really looked in the mirror of myself, and I did this whole thing where I wrote this trilogy of youth Australian books, that was Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies, Lola in the Mirror, right? They all have the same villain, essentially, and it's these people from my past. One guy in particular, to be honest, who was incredibly scary in my youth—and I would have little weird dreams about this guy for quite a long time—and I kind of fixed that. I fixed that in those books. And if you do that, well, what else? What do you have left? And it's just yourself.

And it's like, “Okay, well, what if I thought about that and what if I was the villain?” And he's not necessarily that in this book, but that's an interesting thing for me. And that's where that question of what did I leave behind and what did I have to get out of the way of? It's actually getting out of the way of how I like to see myself, and how I actually am. And I've been really honest, just trying to be really honest with my own ambition and just the things that drive a writer. And so, yeah, it all makes for really interesting drama.

ER: Wow, yeah. It does, it does. It is so compelling. I have to say, I devoured it in one sitting. It really is impressive.

TD: Oh, what? Emma, thank you. That's so lovely. Thank you.

ER: Also, I think listeners hearing the answer to that question, I think, and listening to the novel, will really find that an enriching experience. What you've just described then is really fascinating as someone who's listened to the story. That perspective of what you've brought from your life into the novel is amazing.

TD: Oh, Emma, this is why it's so important for me to chat to you. And I love doing this stuff where you talk about where a book comes from, because I want people to know where it comes from. Then they can go, that makes that paragraph so much more telling and more revealing and more powerful on a drama-level because... And this is where the Audible experience comes in. I cannot say how powerful it is to hear the cadence of a guy revealing parts of himself, that happened in the reading of this book. I'm talking about the oral embracing of a story. That is a really powerful kind of thing because you will hopefully hear a guy who's speaking to an experience he's quite familiar with.

ER: Well, this is the first novel of yours that you've narrated. And I was curious about that, how you found the experience and did it surprise you in any way?

TD: Oh, Emma, it all came from, I had an incredible experience, and Audible has been amazing with the Love Stories reading. And I just got so much out of that, and I learned so much about why I write by just, honestly, you sit in a booth and you are just with you and your creation, and it is the most amazing way to learn about what you've done and why you did it. And I'm telling you: The surprises of this are on the recording. I'm telling you: You will hear it in this recording. I cried. By the end, I'm just a weeping mess like an idiot. And it's because...

ER: It's so personal, right?

TD: I'm telling you, Emma: It's so personal, and the characters are so close. They're so close to the bone that my wife was reading it and going like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. Too close. Too close." And it's just about that idea of doing it just to the edge where I feel I need to. It's like, I apologize to my wife Fiona all the time, and I go, "This isn't about you or the girls. This is about me, and I just need to do this." But all of that comes out in when I'm doing these audiobook readings. And as the drama increases throughout the book, you should hear it, Emma, my whole heart rate rises because I just know exactly where it's going, and I know where it came from.

ER: It ricochets right up.

TD: Yeah, it ricochets. It's an emotional ricochet, you're so right. And you get so thrilled because you know what you're doing as the author; why you're doing it; and you know where it's going. And so you start to get—even I get very emotional—and I even said to the producer, this beautiful guy, Bernie. And I just said, "I know that's so unprofessional, that emotion that's in there, but please, keep it in." And I hope the listener gets to hear that stuff. They will. It's all through it; it's all through it.

ER: It's richer for it, absolutely.

TD: Yeah, it can be richer for it. And when I'm talking about the suburbs, I can talk about, I don't know, I can talk about things with greater love. I can talk about the terrifying things with greater fear. But, most importantly, I can talk about those key characters with—I'm telling you, Emma—a depth of a man who those people are just everything to him. So, that is the power of drawing on truth is what I'm trying to tell you. It's like, this is why I think, in storytelling, it is important because the stakes are raised in your own heart. And I just think that's just such a powerful place to write from.

I wish I could write a book about Nantucket, and I wish I could write a book about Egypt, and I want to, one day. I want to write a book about Ancient Egypt and my love of archeology. But I just never will because there's too many real things to say about the here and now in this wild country of ours, in these wild cities that I know, and these wild suburbs.

ER: Well, almost all your books are set deep in the Australian suburban experience. And what is fascinating though—for people around the world—is it really resonates with people, all of your stories, even how specific they are to the Australian suburban life. How do you approach that with Gravity Let Me Go? How do you convey that micro-suburban experience? And you've got readers all around the world who really relate to you and relate to your stories. How do you approach that when you're writing Gravity Let Me Go?

TD: It's very heartening. I didn't believe it, Emma, for a second when people first told me, "Hey, this story might..." I'm talking, like, Boy Swallows Universe. I didn't believe people when they said, "Hey, this, it's like, no, we are going to turn this into 30 translated territories." And these really, kind of, big ideas of taking a very, as you say, microscopic, micro kind of tale and seeing if it can work on a universal scale. It can, and I cannot believe that.

And with Gravity, I recently sat down with the HarperCollins US editor, and for the first time I said, "Listen, if you guys want to maybe work on changing some of this, I'd be fine, because I know I'm so specific about Brisbane, Queensland, Australia." And this guy, Noah is his name, he's a beautiful man, and he just goes: "Trent, are you kidding me? That's why I read your stuff." And this is a guy in New York, and it's so encouraging. And I've heard that.

"The surprises of this are on the recording. I'm telling you: You will hear it in this recording. I cried. By the end, I'm just a weeping mess like an idiot... And it's because it's so personal, and the characters are so close."

It's the same reason I want a Scandi novel to never hold back on the Scandi elements of it, or I want a London novel to feel like London. And I get so proud about that, that all these incredible Australian writers are writing about their neck of the woods. Emma, that place, those suburbs are the making of me. You know what I mean? Every dark thing and every beautiful thing that ever happened to me. I'm saying all that stuff in Boy Swallows Universe and all the stuff in Lola in the Mirror, in particular, that's just stuff I did stories on.

The stuff in Boy is stuff that I lived, and all of that happened behind closed doors in suburbs no one has ever seen around the world. And I love that all that drama can take place. And yet, when you write it well, someone in Compton, California, can go: "Hang on, that's my family as well. Hang on, that's my living room." And that's the power of just being human.

And that's the thing about Gravity and what Noah said from HarperCollins. He's just like, "Oh, mate, this could be middle America." And that's true. It's just we've all got neighbours; we've all got letterboxes. We've all been scared by someone in the suburbs at some point, and we've all been fascinated with the darkness that you find in your own street sometimes. That just never ceases to amaze me, and that's a phenomenon that exists around the world.

ER: Well, testament to your writing that we're all able to join you there and share in your stories.

TD: Oh, thanks.

ER: Walk me through a typical day of writing for you.

TD: Oh, drop my kids at the bus stop, and hope I really write well on a good night's sleep. It's frighteningly similar every day, Emma.

ER: You write at home?

TD: I make myself... Yeah, write at home, write at home. There's an old ex-rumpus room that used to, the girls are grown up, so they're 18 and 16 now, and what used to be their rumpus room is now my writing space. Well, I'll tell you what I do, and this gets a bit deep, so sorry for the flighty sort of conversation, but...

ER: We love it.

TD: Well, I either do a boiled egg on avocado and toast or a fried egg on avocado and toast, fix myself the biggest coffee you've ever seen, and that coffee will be my friend for about three hours. That'll be the morning session—so that'll get me from 9:00 till 12:00. But if I'm writing something dramatic, like I was writing in this, Emma, I swear, this is really cheesy, but I have a ritual of thinking about a world in which I never met Fiona, my wife. And so, I met her on January 10th, 2000, we were both journos, and it was one of those a million-and-one different things could have happened, Emma. I cannot even begin to tell you the sheer miracle.

ER: The sliding doors.

TD: Sliding doors of that. And honestly, I actively think about that because without that, then there's no Beth Dalton, who's my eldest daughter, there's no Sylvie Dalton, my youngest daughter, and that is genuinely terrifying. And that, that feeling, it's a bolt of electricity, and it wakes you up as much as a strong coffee. It's an emotional wake up, and it helps you tap into—I always try and tap into emotional things.

And then the other thing—this is honestly these daily rituals, and then I think of, this is ridiculous—I think of this particular Christmas Day where, this is so stupid, I'm so sorry for even going there.

ER: No, we love it.

TD: But I think of the Christmas Day where my mum, I remember it was like Christmas 1989, and we woke up, and I was with my brother, and my mum was in prison. I mean, this is a fleeting thought. I mean, I only have to think briefly on it. And so, I go through this thought process of these deep things, and then I start writing. And then every word you write from there has just been elevated somehow. And so it's sort of like this, it's this emotional writing, and you'll see it in Gravity. Gravity is why I love doing the Audible read because I read it like I'm running a fricking running race. It's like what I'm trying to say is—there's such an energy to it. You've got to feel all that stuff, and it might come across.

ER: Yeah. I think, hearing your daily ritual, it's like every day your writing is forged out of love, avocado toast, and an egg.

TD: Exactly.

ER: It's impressive.

TD: Yeah, yeah. Well, and then throw in four or so hours of self-loathing, that's the other thing. Self-doubt, self-loathing, fear, forehead slapping, and just breaking your own spirit down into a million tiny little pieces, and then building it all back up again. And more typing. Yeah, so it's this ongoing thing. And then I'll run. And then the way to get out of all of that is to go for a run, yeah, while listening to music from Seattle, 1992 to 1996. And then you're all good, and then you're ready for the next day.

ER: Then you're happy. It's your happy place.

TD: Yeah, that's it.

ER: Any music while you're actually writing, or you do that when you're running?

TD: Oh, man, that's a great, great... I listen to a lot of Double J, which is like Triple J for Gen Xes, and-

ER: It's a local radio station here in Australia.

TD: Yeah, yeah. So just, I put that on because... And I do believe that writing should be fun; I do think you need to make your space enjoyable. I can't have that up too loud, but it has to be there, and it has to just be because I just need to be kickstarted by some song sometime. And I find music one of the great connectors to the soul, and that's where I believe stories belong, like novels belong. And that sixth sense, and I don't mean anything spooky, I mean just that thing we can't explain, the same place love comes from is the same place a good novel comes from. And so, you're just using it whatever you can to access that space. Yeah, music's like a massive part.

"We've all been scared by someone in the suburbs at some point, and we've all been fascinated with the darkness that you find in your own street."

ER: That's beautiful.

TD: And then it starts the day with music, and then the day finishes with music in the most powerful way; where it's just your best.

ER: Running through it.

TD: Yeah, you're there with your mate, John Lennon, and he's going, "Oh, I've been there before. I've had that self-doubt as well, and I just sang my ass off and everything felt well." And you just go, “Okay, I can do this.”

ER: If you could go back and give early career Trent Dalton one piece of advice, what would it be?

TD: I would say, “Trent, it is absurd to think that you can, alone, can make every person you come into contact with happy.” Just an absurd thing that I have carried for, possibly, all my life, but that would be the big one, I would say. “You just can't make everyone happy all the time, and that's just something, I mean…”

You should see me, Emma, at book events. I'm just there trying to hug every last person and go, "I hope the book changed something for you." And I'm like, "I'm sorry if you're sad." And it's just like I would tell myself that you are really up against it if you think you're going to do that, and that applies in my own daily life but even in the writing world. I brought that daily life—that's just the problem of being a youngest son of three older brothers. And I always had this weird sort of responsibility that no one ever wanted me to even have, but I just took it upon myself to be the guy who was making everyone happy back in the day. Well, you turn 38, and you write Boy Swallows Universe, and you start applying that to your writing life, and it's just crazy. You're never going to be able to make every person who reads that book feel better about themselves, but you can just offer some light. And anyway, that's what I'd tell myself back in the day.

ER: That's so fascinating, though. That's an intent of yours, deep down though still, is it?

TD: Oh, man, you should see where... Oh, well, you know where Gravity goes. You should see where it goes. It's so ambitious, and it goes so big.

ER: It does.

TD: Because, trying to crack open the light and just go: Here it is. And that's where I like to take. If we're going to go there, why don't we take a big swing and see if we can show the cracks of suburban Australia, but also show the wonder as well.

ER: Yeah, defy the laws of the universe.

TD: Gravity Let Me Go, right? That's it.

ER: I see what you did there. Okay.

TD: That's so true, right? And that is what my wife does. That's how I see her sometimes. I see her do stuff that I don't believe. I go, “How did you have that depth of emotion or how did you do that? That's really impressive.” And I'm really working on that idea, of the couple in this book are having these communication problems and there's a million-and-one reasons that you might be thinking about why this guy's wife, she stops talking on him, and it's not the reasons why we might think.

ER: It's a surprise.

TD: It's not at all, yeah. It's actually something more wondrous than Noah could ever understand. And that just gets me so excited because that's the wonder of love and the wonder of relationships and the wonder of a woman who you've lived with for 25 years who is constantly a mystery and in the best possible way. You know what I mean? As everyone goes, people go, I've had other blokes say, "I don't understand my wife." And I'm like, “Man, I don't think you have to. Maybe you shouldn't have to understand her fully. She should remain a mystery until you're 90.” And it's like, that's what makes it so amazing, and that's what I'm trying to throw inside these books and trying to just go big with this stuff.

ER: I think Gravity Let Me Go definitely takes us there. You can feel the love. It's visceral.

TD: Oh, that's great.

ER: I've just got a couple more questions for you to round off this interview. Like Noah in the book, who's chasing the scoop of his lifetime, what's a yarn that you are just dying to tell next?

TD: Oh, the sequel to Boy. The sequel to Boy Swallows Universe, Emma.

ER: Oh, wow. Wow, that's exciting for us all to hear.

TD: Yeah, but I'm terrified of it. I'm scared to death, and I shouldn't be; I should just go for it. I'm really excited about it. And you're, like, the first person I've told about this.

But I've got this whole thing about a prequel meets a sequel at the same time, and the prequel and the sequel absolutely being related. And there's so much I want to write about August Bell, the wonderfully selectively mute kid who's the absolute amalgam of my three beautiful older brothers. And I'm really keen on writing something about where young boys take that stuff and what sort of men they turn into when you do experience—no matter how beautiful that stuff is—you can even write a book about it. And where you carry that stuff still when you're Eli Bell, and you hit the 2020s, not the 1980s, and I was like, “Oh, that's really cool.’ But also talking about this amazing bond that August Bell and Frankie Bell, the mum, have, and that's a real-life thing as well. And yeah, there's just, but I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I just worry, I'll screw it all up and just ruin any good feeling people have about Boy Swallows Universe. So, that's the one. You asked me that question. What's the one? That's a big one, and I've just like...

"The sequel to Boy Swallows Universe... I'm scared to death, and I shouldn't be; I should just go for it. I'm really excited about it."

And you know what? Writing Gravity Let Me Go is a process; it's a step forward to a book like that. You know what I mean? It's weird this way, everything has to come at the right time, and I just can only write about where I am on Earth and when I am on Earth at any given time. Yeah, so that's the one I hope one day I feel really ready to write and not [mess] it up.

ER: Well, we all cannot wait for that. That's exciting.

TD: Thanks.

ER: One last question. It's a very serious one. As our newest novel narrator, could you give us your best, “This is Audible” impression?

TD: I would love to. Do you know how many times, do you know how long my Audible, you should see my Audible list. I am the biggest Audible listener, Emma.

ER: Oh, you should share that with us. We'd all love to know what you're listening to.

TD: Okay, Emma, I cannot do the dishes. I am that much an Audible addict that I cannot wash a single dish without turning on my Audible at some point.

ER: Super fan.

TD: Yeah, yeah. So, I'm going to do the one that I hear the most. Now, I don't know if there's, it's that guy, he's like iconic. They should track this guy down, but it's that guy who goes, "This is Audible."

ER: Oh, that's good.

TD: That guy.

ER: That's good.

TD: Is that close?

ER: Yes.

TD: It's that guy. You know that guy? There's different people, I guess.

ER: That guy; he's our guy.

TD: The guy I hear the most is, "This is Audible." It's like that guy, I don't know if I'm even close.

ER: That's it, you nailed it.

TD: But he's just like that, when you hear that guy, that's just like unfurling a towel at Burleigh Heads, and you might as well just be in your happy place. Even if you are washing a roast chicken pan that hasn't been soaked enough, that guy, he'll get you through that. You know what I mean? I just do endless Audibles. I'm doing You Like It Darker right now, the Stephen King short story thing.

ER: Oh, yeah.

TD: So, short stories on Audible are unflipping believable. And yeah, I just did that Say Everything, that amazing autobiography by that incredible actress [Ione Skye]. Anyway, yeah, so I hope that got anywhere close, near that guy, but yeah.

ER: Trent, that was awesome. I feel like we've had some breaking news from you today. We know you want to write the prequel-sequel to Boy Swallows Universe. We know you’re super powered by love, avocado, and eggs in your writing days.

TD: And eggs, yep, yep, yep.

ER: And you're a super fan of Audible, so please share your latest listening. We'd love to know what you're listening to.

TD: Always. I am just permanently listening to Audible, and it's just the best place as a way for writers, too. Sometimes you don't want to sit and read words again after eight hours of writing words, and it's the most amazing way to engage with good writing. It is, it's such a powerful tool. That's the other thing I'm listening to when I'm running.

ER: It's so intimate, isn't it?

TD: The intimacy of that is just as intimate as the novel when you're sitting near the bedside table lamp. That is a sacred space.

ER: That's why I'm so excited to listen to Gravity Let Me Go narrated by you, because we are going to hear your story in our ears.

TD: Emma, there is a case to be made, and I said it to the producer, I said, "I will be telling people to actually listen to this one."

ER: It's very special.

TD: You should see where I go, it's really funny, and I hope it's really cool. And it was the only time where I said, "No, this is really appropriate," because I kind of am that guy. So, anything that guy says, I know all too well.

ER: You embody Noah.

TD: Yeah, that's right.

ER: Thank you, Trent. Thank you so much for your time. Please get the pickup happening, the flight, smooth. I wish all luck for you.

TD: Thanks, Emma, you're the best. It's so great to catch up again.

ER: It's so good to see you.

TD: Thanks a lot. Bye.

ER: Safe travels.