Trent Dalton closes important chapter

Best-selling novelist and The Weekend Australian Magazine writer Trent Dalton is ready to leave an important chapter of his childhood behind. In just seven weeks the Netflix adaptation of his hit first novel, Boy Swallows Universe, based on Dalton’s Brisbane childhood, goes to air. Watching the series has given him an overwhelming sense of closure. And during filming he formed a strong bond with Felix Cameron, the 14-year-old actor from Victoria who played the young Eli Bell – a character Dalton has called his teenage avatar.

“We’re a part of each other now,” Dalton tells The Weekend Australian. “I just hope (the story is) not too much of a weight for him.” Saturday’s magazine feature includes exclusive imagery from the series, which also stars Phoebe Tonkin as Frankie, the character based on Dalton’s mother; Travis Fimmel as Lyle, who was based on his stepfather; and Simon Baker as Robert, based on Dalton’s father: “Simon Baker made my old man live for eight hours.”

Dalton, whose latest novel, Lola in the Mirror, is about the artistic aspirations of a young girl living rough in Brisbane, is ready to move on. “I genuinely feel like this is the thing that I was put on the Earth to do, and that it makes all that early stuff make sense,” he said. “But I am done.” He is ready to “write about a whole bunch of things I know about as an adult”, leaving his teenage avatar in the minds of readers and viewers.