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Trent Dalton reveals his deeply personal new book · The Front

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Don't you see your camera? Don't see your camera?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: He's breaking up a lot. I think he's on vhotaphone.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Don't they pay you?
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  Speaker 3: Isn't it nice when you encounter someone whose success is
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  Speaker 3: matched with humility, someone who, though seemingly drowning in acclaim,
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  Speaker 3: is down to earth, decimingly warm and friendly. In the
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  Speaker 3: Australian literary world, it's hard to find a better example
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  Speaker 3: of that than Trent Dalton. Trent is lovely and a
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  Speaker 3: walking success story, having written bestsellers like Boy Swallows Universe,
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  Speaker 3: Lola in the Mirror and Love Stories Literally. Editor Caroline
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  Speaker 3: Overington sat down with Trent to discuss his new novel
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  Speaker 3: Gravity Let Me Go, which will hit bookshops in September.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: It's only natural for aspiring writers to look at their
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  Speaker 3: heroes and think, how did they do it? When it
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  Speaker 3: comes to Trent Dalton's process, the answer might flammeax them.
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  Speaker 4: My first book, Boy Swallow's Universe, So I swear like
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  Speaker 4: that came out of lightning. These things come to me
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  Speaker 4: in dreams, and they come to me from the universe.
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  Speaker 1: They come to me from space.
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  Speaker 3: If summoning your stories from space is a bit out
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  Speaker 3: of your comfort, zone. Maybe the best way to emulate
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  Speaker 3: Trent would be to follow the advice of creative writing
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  Speaker 3: teachers around the world. Write what you.
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  Speaker 1: Know, everything I've done in Gravity let Me Go is
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  Speaker 1: absolutely just.
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  Speaker 4: Inspired by or something I've seen in the suburbs or
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  Speaker 4: something I've lived, and it's like, let's take that a
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  Speaker 4: little bit further and let's amplify it, just like I
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  Speaker 4: did with Boy Swallow's universe.
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  Speaker 3: Trent Dalton's started his career at The Courier Mail before
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: joining us here at The Australian writing features for the
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  Speaker 3: Weekend magazine. It was that instinct channeling his own experiences
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  Speaker 3: into his work that earned Trent too Walkley Awards.
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  Speaker 4: I was doing it in journalism, like I did so
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  Speaker 4: many stories on the links between drug addiction and domestic
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  Speaker 4: violence and homelessness and just I mean, these were all
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  Speaker 4: the things that were just part of my childhood. And
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  Speaker 4: then you know, I did stories on women getting out
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  Speaker 4: of prison, and then it was just tick tick tick tick.
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  Speaker 4: Everything I've written is a reflection of where I am
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  Speaker 4: at any given time.
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  Speaker 2: Hello Trent Dalton and welcome.
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  Speaker 3: Ar Literre editor Caroline Overington sat down with Trent to
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  Speaker 3: discuss his new book, Gravity Let Me Go.
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  Speaker 2: Can you tell us about it?
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  Speaker 4: It's the story of a true crime journalist who is
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  Speaker 4: so obsessed by the scoop of his lifetime he is
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  Speaker 4: in danger of missing an even bigger scoop, and that
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  Speaker 4: is true love. It might be, I think the most
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  Speaker 4: personal book I've ever written.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a little bit worried about it.
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  Speaker 4: It could be that close to the bone, but it's
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  Speaker 4: really beautiful at the same time, so I'm really excited
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  Speaker 4: about it. It's my version of a marriage story buried
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  Speaker 4: inside a murder mystery. So it's got everything that I
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  Speaker 4: kind of love about the suburbs and about crime, and
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  Speaker 4: it's my little tribute to my obsession with journalism and
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  Speaker 4: my obsession with storytelling.
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's coming out in September.
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  Speaker 2: Tell me about the title and what does it refer to?
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  Speaker 4: Those words gravity let Me Go came to me in
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  Speaker 4: a vision I had of things in my own suburb floating,
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  Speaker 4: just like my very ordinary suburb in the northern suburbs
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  Speaker 4: of Brisbane, floating away.
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  Speaker 1: And you know what if we were let go of
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  Speaker 1: where it comes.
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  Speaker 4: From in relation to this story, is our journal steps
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  Speaker 4: out the shower, he looks in the bathroom mirror, and
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  Speaker 4: in the stem that has built up in the bathroom mirror,
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  Speaker 4: he sees four words, and those four words say gravity,
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  Speaker 4: let me Go. And now those words must have been
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  Speaker 4: written by one of three women that he lives within
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  Speaker 4: his house, either his wife or one of his two
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  Speaker 4: teenage daughters. That's just one of the great mysteries of
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  Speaker 4: the novel as to who was the person who wrote that.
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  Speaker 4: But of course the greater mystery is that are those
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  Speaker 4: four words a statement or are they a request?
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  Speaker 1: Trent Dalton is forty six.
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  Speaker 3: If Boyce Waller's universe drew on the experiences from Trent's
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  Speaker 3: childhood and Lola in the mirror mind experiences Trent had
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  Speaker 3: while working as a journo, Gravity Let Me Go examines
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  Speaker 3: some of Dalton's current day, real life narrative lines.
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  Speaker 4: So it's kind of me drawing on myself, but it's
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  Speaker 4: me also observing people in my age group who have
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  Speaker 4: been in long term relationship and where they're at with them.
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  Speaker 4: I love this idea of looking at a wife, right,
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  Speaker 4: just the concept of my wife and just going she's wondrous,
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  Speaker 4: Like I watched her form two amazing human beings inside
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  Speaker 4: her you know, and it's like, could I lean into
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  Speaker 4: a bit of that side of marriage as well as
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  Speaker 4: looking at all the bones that are buried beneath the
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  Speaker 4: great Australian dream, you know.
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  Speaker 1: So like we're all here in these suburbs.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it's so idyllic and it's so beautiful and
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  Speaker 4: middle class.
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  Speaker 1: But I know full well from the.
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  Speaker 4: Journalism that I've done that there's a darkness that permeates
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  Speaker 4: the Brisbane suburbs, the Sydney suburbs, the Melbourne suburbs.
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  Speaker 1: And it's like that all gets me very excited.
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  Speaker 2: I'm interested that you've honed in on the mid forties,
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  Speaker 2: which I guess is a kind of reckoning for a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people. Yeah, people completely different by the time
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  Speaker 2: they get to their forties. And if so, what does
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  Speaker 2: the reckoning k like for you and for your character?
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  Speaker 4: I love this idea that a couple needs to transform.
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  Speaker 4: The character in this book his name's Noah Cork, and
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  Speaker 4: like a lot of my stories, he's got a lot
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  Speaker 4: of me and him. He's coming to terms with the
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  Speaker 4: fact that something even more miraculous than his understanding might
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  Speaker 4: be happening to his wife in terms of her transformation.
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  Speaker 4: But I'm also very interested in that thing us blokes
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  Speaker 4: through where we alienate ourselves from our own love stories.
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  Speaker 4: We sometimes think it's our partners being alien but it's
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  Speaker 4: us who are alienating, you know, we are actively alienating
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  Speaker 4: ourselves sometimes from the wonders that surround us. I'm so
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  Speaker 4: guilty of alienating myself inside storytelling. I did it as
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  Speaker 4: a journal. You go deep on a yarn, you know,
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  Speaker 4: And I'd go deep every month or so. I would
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  Speaker 4: be on some story for the weekend oz mag and
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  Speaker 4: just nothing got in between those stories, you know, nothing.
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  Speaker 4: We're all diving into these things trying to avoid change, sometimes,
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  Speaker 4: trying to avoid evolution and transformation and maturing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, as a couple, when you started out, Trent,
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  Speaker 2: when you first met your partner, you would have been
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  Speaker 2: a very young man, but also a young man from
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  Speaker 2: a troubled upbringing. And I wonder you seem to be
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  Speaker 2: a little hard on yourself here today talking about how
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  Speaker 2: you can get lost in your work. But weren't you
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  Speaker 2: trying to do something for your family in becoming so
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  Speaker 2: committed to your craft and so determined to succeed.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I'll get emotional if I do well that's
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  Speaker 4: a beautiful thing to say, Caroline, thank you. I'm going
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  Speaker 4: I am getting emotional because it's a really beautiful thing
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  Speaker 4: to observe, Like I have no doubt I've got a
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  Speaker 4: job on the Courier Mile, and I'm telling you that
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  Speaker 4: was groundbreaking for me and my family to think that
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  Speaker 4: someone found a space, literally a desk space, and they said, hey, mate,
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  Speaker 4: you're going to take all of your experience.
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking zero to twenty, which was wild in my life.
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  Speaker 4: Like that does involve every social issue that is facing
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  Speaker 4: the state of Queensland, that is facing the nation of Australia.
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  Speaker 1: I think I saw it up close.
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  Speaker 4: I remember when I was like year six, Caroline my
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  Speaker 4: teacher at Brighton State School. So everything had gone down
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  Speaker 4: with my mom, Like my mum had gone to prison
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  Speaker 4: and for dealing heroin and stuff, and she'd gone away
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  Speaker 4: and we went to live with my dad over in Brackenridge,
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  Speaker 4: like on the northern outskirts of Brisbane, and this teacher
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  Speaker 4: one of the few parent teacher nights that dad went
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  Speaker 4: to was missus Garside and.
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  Speaker 1: Dad came home that night. I was like, how did
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  Speaker 1: it go? Dad? And he goes, what the bloody.
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  Speaker 4: Hell you doing in that class because Miss Garside is
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  Speaker 4: convinced that you're going to grow up to be the
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  Speaker 4: leader of an outlaw motorcycle game. Like that's what she
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  Speaker 4: told Dad. And I just find that so funny and
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  Speaker 4: so beautiful and so sweet. It's so ridiculous, Like you
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  Speaker 4: imagine me as the leader of the rebels or something,
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  Speaker 4: It'd be the worst move the rebels ever made. I
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  Speaker 4: just remember thinking, Man, if I ever got a crack
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  Speaker 4: like that would be the greatest tasting gravy.
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  Speaker 1: And I would never let it go.
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  Speaker 4: So when well, I jagged that role, and I was
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  Speaker 4: just like and then whatever. Became a feature writer for
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  Speaker 4: the Career Mahal and then a feature writer for the Ohs,
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  Speaker 4: the National broadsheet, huge groundbreaking things, and so yeah, I
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  Speaker 4: gave it everything and that was me absolutely yeah, and
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  Speaker 4: it worked.
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  Speaker 1: You know, here's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've clawed your way up from the underbelly, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: into the middle class, and you've taken your wife and
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  Speaker 2: children with you. So why all the guilt?
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  Speaker 4: It comes from? What is at the deeper part of it?
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  Speaker 4: What is about me that keeps chasing it? Like, where
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  Speaker 4: does the ambition come from? It's almost guilt from my
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  Speaker 4: shameless ambition Boyce what was Universe? And even like Lolla
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  Speaker 4: in the Mirror, these books went to places I never
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  Speaker 4: thought possible. When would I ever be satisfied? That's what
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  Speaker 4: the guy in this book Gravity Let Me Go is
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  Speaker 4: trying to to terms with.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 4: It's sort of like, when will you stop thinking about
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  Speaker 4: stories and just be satisfied with real life? I sort
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  Speaker 4: of interrogate that a bit in this book. That's where
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  Speaker 4: this guy is just chasing this scoop and nothing will
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  Speaker 4: get in the way. You know, Like it's me fascinated
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  Speaker 4: with my own psychology, and I know that those guilty
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  Speaker 4: feelings come from me still trying to maybe not process
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  Speaker 4: stuff from the past, you know, like not dealing with
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  Speaker 4: that in the best way and putting it all in stories.
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  Speaker 4: Like you think you can solve stuff about the sorrows
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  Speaker 4: I feel about my family, but you think you can
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  Speaker 4: deal with it by putting it inside a book called
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: boy Sweller's Universe.
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  Speaker 1: But that's just a four hundred page book.
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  Speaker 4: That's not twenty years of life that you've probably got
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  Speaker 4: to process in other ways than just putting them into words.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we'll be right back with more of Caroline
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  Speaker 3: Overington's chat with Trent Dalton.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know, I think sometimes people look at your career, Trent,
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  Speaker 2: and they think to themselves, if I could have that,
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  Speaker 2: If I could get my first book published and it
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  Speaker 2: could become an international best seller. And then Netflix comes
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  Speaker 2: along and turns it into a series, and somebody else
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  Speaker 2: comes along and turns it into a stage play, and
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  Speaker 2: I turn up at writers festivals and there's whole rooms
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  Speaker 2: full of people cheering for me. You know, I'd be happy.
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  Speaker 2: That'd be enough. I know. Great artists across the pantheon
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  Speaker 2: have discussed this question. Bob Dylan in when I paint
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  Speaker 2: my masterpiece that actually you think it will make you happy,
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  Speaker 2: but the things that make you happy are perhaps more fundamental.
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  Speaker 2: Has that been your experience?
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  Speaker 1: Oh god, man, you're so okay?
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  Speaker 4: Can I just tell like that is so wise because
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  Speaker 4: you've just defined the meaning of gravity. Let me go
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  Speaker 4: the book I just wrote it. You know, if I
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  Speaker 4: could put it in a sentence, it's yes. I climbed
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  Speaker 4: the mountain and I went to the summit, and I
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  Speaker 4: looked over the edge and all I saw was the
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  Speaker 4: kitchen that I walked.
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  Speaker 1: From earlier that morning.
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  Speaker 4: And please don't get me wrong, man, I am deliriously
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  Speaker 4: happy with my lot.
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  Speaker 1: If I had a moment where I got all that where.
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  Speaker 4: People wanted to start seeing me at festivals, it's because
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  Speaker 4: I was talking about deep personal.
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  Speaker 1: Family stuff, you know, like that's interesting.
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  Speaker 4: I remember being in the OZ Bureau of Brisbane and
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  Speaker 4: I remember a retrospective crime story. One of the court reporters.
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  Speaker 4: He comes flying into the office and he's like looking
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  Speaker 4: for a name. I won't say the name, and I
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: put this into boy Swallow's universe this journey is shouting
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  Speaker 4: it across the bureau. He's like, does anyone have a
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: contact for blah blah right? Quite a well known criminal
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  Speaker 4: figure in Queensland. And I sank into my desk chair
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  Speaker 4: as I'm writing my flowery, colorful feature articles just saying
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: shut up, Trent in my head because I knew that
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  Speaker 4: I played with that guy's kids when I was a kid,
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  Speaker 4: at like barbecues and just going wow, like you know,
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  Speaker 4: my mom still knows that guy's family and what I'm
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  Speaker 4: trying to say. I knew that that was such a
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  Speaker 4: cool story, Like I knew I had a real humdinger
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  Speaker 4: of a yarn that I could turn into sort of
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  Speaker 4: this autobiographical story which became boy Saul's universe.
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  Speaker 1: But the thing.
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  Speaker 4: About all that really great stuff and all of that,
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  Speaker 4: it always comes back to what are your relationships? Like,
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  Speaker 4: like what what was the cost? And did I do
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  Speaker 4: it right? Like I called every member of my family.
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  Speaker 4: Caroline was like, hey, you guys got to know I
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  Speaker 4: just have to tell this story because it's too good.
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  Speaker 1: Not too but it's like, did I do that in
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  Speaker 1: the right way?
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  Speaker 4: Where it's like, you know, my mom had that she's
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: retired now, but you know, she was working for Budget Direct,
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  Speaker 4: like on a call center Caroline when that book came out,
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  Speaker 4: and she like had to walk into her boss's office
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  Speaker 4: and go like, listen, I'm sorry, I've got this youngest son.
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  Speaker 1: He's written this book.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think anyone will read it, so don't worry,
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  Speaker 4: but just in case anyone does, it's kind of about
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  Speaker 4: the time I was like in love with this heroin
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  Speaker 4: dealer and I went and did time in prison.
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  Speaker 1: But don't worry. I'm well past all that. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you know that's well in the past.
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  Speaker 4: But it was like, that's really awkward for this beautiful
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  Speaker 4: mom of mine. It's all of that stuff that I carry,
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  Speaker 4: and all the stuff is beautiful that comes with it, and
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  Speaker 4: it has been extraordinary. But the thing that I always
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: keep coming back to is exactly what you say.
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  Speaker 1: It's sort of what was at.
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  Speaker 4: The bottom of the mountain, you know, before it all,
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  Speaker 4: you know, and that was actually the important stuff. And
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  Speaker 4: it's like no surprise that it creeps into this more
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  Speaker 4: modern book that I've written now, the latest, because it's like,
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  Speaker 4: it's absolutely the thing that's on my mind.
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  Speaker 3: Caroline Overington is The Australian's literary editor. You can read
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: her feature on Trent Dalton's new book in this Weekend's
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Review section of The Weekend Australian Gravity. Let Me Go,
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  Speaker 3: published by HarperCollins, comes out in September. Thanks for joining
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: us on the front this week. This episode was hosted
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: by me Claire Harvey and produced and edited by Jasper League,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: who also composed our theme. Our team includes Kristen amiot Leat, Sammergloo,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Tiffany Tymack, Josh Burton and Stephanie Kons