Trent Dalton takes to the streets in search of true romance

For a month, Trent Dalton has been sitting on a Brisbane street with an old typewriter asking people: ‘Tell me a love story?’

Bestselling author Trent Dalton interviews Ben and Sara Shi in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall for his new book of true-life love stories. Picture: Glenn Hunt

For the best part of a month, Trent Dalton has been sitting at a cheap and cheerful desk on a busy Brisbane street corner, tapping away at a sky-blue, 1960s ­Olivetti typewriter.

Naturally, people have been stopping to stare. “When they stopped, I’d say, ‘I have a question for you’,” Dalton says. “Can you tell me a love story?”

And oh, how they responded. Because this was Dalton at his best. Yes, he’s known to many as the author of one of Australia’s most beloved novels (sales of Boy Swallows Universe and his latest release, All Our Shimmering Skies, have now topped an astonishing 780,000 copies) but Dalton is also a journalist for The Weekend Australian Magazine, and some of his finest tales – tear-­jerkers, the lot of them – came from stories told to him by strangers he approached on the street.

Dalton on the streets of Brisbane. Picture: Glenn Hunt

A joyful, open soul, he has the knack for getting a conversation going. Also, for meeting people where they stand; for listening, as their hearts begin to thrum and drum; and for being able to say: “I hear you, brother.”

His next book, Love Stories, will be a collection of the tales he has been told.

The project didn’t start with Dalton behind the old typewriter. It started with him stopping random strangers on the street. He did that for a month. Then a friend’s mother died – she was the kind of friend’s mum who kept clippings of his stories from this newspaper, so proud was she of young Trent – and she gifted him her Olivetti in her will.

He put the typewriter on the desk on the corner of Adelaide and Albert streets in Brisbane’s CBD, and waited to see who came up to say hello.

“When I had about 150 stories under my belt, I said: I’m going to write a book,” he says.

It wasn’t all romantic love. Some people talked about their love for cars, or Cherry Ripes. There’s a tale about a tree lopper whose heart stopped in a forest. But for many, there was only one story: the ways in which they had fallen in love. Did people cry?

Trent Dalton’s next book, Love Stories.

“Yes, and me too,” Dalton says. “I was weeping on the street corner with them. Because it’s grand. We throw the word around – love, love, love. And it’s the greatest thing there is.”

Just as often, though, came ­stories of loss. Of blighted love. Or unrequited love.

“One thing that came through very strongly (in the stories) was how you can’t always hold onto love,” says Dalton.

“There were people who’d had love, and blown it up, and they talked about all they had lost. That’s why to love anything is the biggest risk you will ever take. That’s why, all those lovers out there, they are so brave. The stakes are high, you can get badly hurt, and they’re still going for it.”

And did people also say: “OK, there is somebody I love … we ended up not speaking … but I’m going to fix this”?

Interviewing Ben Barker and Skye Sutherland. Picture: Glenn Hunt

“Several times, yes!” Dalton cries. “People would say, I’ve got to call this person. And I’d say: call that person! Because one day, they’re not going to be around. One day, you’re not going to be able to say to them, I’m sorry. I love you. Don’t wait. Do it now.

“And they would say: ‘I’m going to tell them!’ And you could see it in their eyes. The light doesn’t go out. That love, it was still burning in them.

“That’s the story I want to tell, how when you experience love, it never really leaves you.

“You can’t describe it, but we all know it when we feel it. And it is the most profound and wondrous thing.”

Love Stories by Trent Dalton will be published by HarperCollins Fourth Estate on October 27.