My Miles Franklin Longlist Favourite

+12 The Miles Franklin Literary Award is Australia's premier prize for literature. And I've read four of the ten books on the Miles Franklin longlist for 2019: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, A Stolen Season by Rodney Hall, Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills and The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen.

Trent Dalton and Tracy Sorensen are debut fiction authors, Rodney Hall has won the Miles Franklin Award twice, and Jennifer Mills was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists (2012).

N.B. Click on a cover photo to learn more about a book or buy it on Amazon.com.au.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

The hoopla surrounding this book since its publication in June 2018 has been phenomenal. Set in mid-1980s Brisbane, it's the tale of two brothers, a lost father, a junkie mother, heroin dealers, murderers and an ex-crim babysitter whose jailbreaks earned him the nickname, Houdini of Boggo Road.

A Stolen Season by Rodney Hall

After listening to a podcast interview with Rodney Hall, I bought his latest book and added it to my to-be-read pile. When I finally started reading it, I wanted to shirk my household chores, dad duties and dog walking, and immerse myself in Hall's story of "a stolen season" told from three perspectives.

Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills

I reviewed Dyschronia for Writing NSW in May 2018. The novel is set in the run-down coastal town of Clapstone. The townsfolk view twenty-five-year-old Sam as their oracle. They depend on her visions to bankroll their future. And yet a great catastrophe has occurred: the sea has disappeared. Why didn't Sam warn them?

The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen

My son gave me The Lucky Galah for Father's Day — he said he chose the book for the pink and grey feathers on front cover and the publisher's blurb on the back: "A magnificent novel about fate, Australia and what it means to be human ... it just happens to be narrated by a galah called Lucky."

Three of the books are pure works of fiction — a pink and grey galah narrates Sorensen's novel. But Boy Swallows Universe is based on Dalton's life. Like the young protagonist, Eli Bell, his parents were heroin addicts and dealers in Brisbane in the 1980s, and he grew up to be a journalist (Dalton writes for The Australian).

I felt uncomfortable with this knowledge when I started reading Boy Swallows Universe. I kept wanting DOCS to knock at the door and take Eli and his brother into protective custody. At times I was confused as to whether I was reading fiction or memoir. And I wondered how Dalton's book could be judged against the other works of fiction in the Miles Franklin longlist?

Share Your Nonfiction

I discussed my concerns with a friend and author, who said a publishing industry acquaintance had told him judges look for "amplitude" in a book. I didn't get what was meant by this, until about halfway through Boy Swallows Universe, when the story gripped me and I binge-read the final chapters.

After finishing the book, I checked the literary definition of "amplitude" on Vocabulary.com:

Describes the depth, breadth, or magnitude of something — in other words, how big or full it is. If people compliment the amplitude of a piece of writing, it means the writer put much emotion into it.

Yes, Boy Swallows Universe deserves the hoopla, it has amplitude aplenty. And as much as I enjoyed reading my other books on the Miles Franklin longlist, if Dalton doesn't win the award, then I want to read the book that does!

N.B. In addition to Writing NSW, my book review of Jennifer Mills' Dyschronia is also published on Tall And True.

Update 3rd July 2019: Wow, Boy Swallows Universe didn't make the Miles Franklin shortlist! However, Dyschronia and A Stolen Season are on it and, having read both books, either would be worthy winners of the Award.

Robert Fairhead

Sydney, NSW, Australia.
A middle-aged dad and dog owner, Robert is the Founding Editor and a writer for Tall And True and blogs at RobertFairhead.com. He enjoys reading, writing, playing the guitar, walking his dog, and watching Aussie Rules Footy with his son. Robert has worked as an electrician, sales and marketing rep, computer programmer, dog trainer and (wanna-be) writer. He also had a one-night stand as a stand-up comic.

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