There’s no question that Trent Dalton is an extraordinarily talented writer.
The Australian novelist, whose 2018 debut novel Boy Swallows Universe won multiple awards and was turned into a seven part TV series that also won multiple awards, has produced in his latest novel Gravity Let Me Go another towering tour de force brimming with drama and emotion, the kind of book that truly deserves the title of “page-turner”.
Set in ultra-suburban Brisbane, it’s the story of crime writer Noah Cork, whose account of a murder sets off a series of events that not only disrupts the quiet lives of his neighbours but turns his own family life inside out, dragging out stories he’d hidden even from himself.
Somehow, Dalton manages to convey this in a vernacular tone filled with colloquialisms and wisecracks from our protagonist and even more so from his 15 and 12 year old daughters Erin and Clementine.
Set against this is Noah’s wife, Rita, whose personal drama is reflected in her going mute, even as her family starts to see her in an almost mystical light.
Gravity Let Me Go is written in the language of 21st century social media savvy Australia, where cynicism and scepticism swing wildly against love and commitment. Drug use, satanism, and mysterious birds are as likely to appear as garden gnomes, letterboxes, and testicular surgery.
If anything, Dalton has become even better at helping the reader visualise physical settings, while he also wrangles a complicated plot by having us follow it through a protagonist who’s never quite on top of things.
It would be fair to describe Gravity Let Me Go as a compelling whodunnit and a thriller but it is equally a deeply affecting portrait of an Australian family in “a circumstance of great peril”.
As with all of Dalton’s novels, the magic is in how he balances the mundane, the ordinary, and the banal with the exotic: serial killers, wild weather, damaged family histories, and dramatic conflict of the highest order.
There are lots of quirks, distractions, pop culture references, secondary themes, and compelling supporting characters, but what stands out is that Dalton is first and foremost a terrific story teller.
Oh, and I’d be very surprised if Gravity Let Me Go was also not turned into TV or a movie, it’s extremely cinematic.
Highly recommended.