Raw, Honest and Beautiful: To My Dad at Christmas by Trent Dalton

Raw, Honest and Beautiful: To My Dad at Christmas by Trent Dalton

A Belated Note to Dad This Christmas

Words // Trent Dalton

Of course, a note. You were the best at notes. Letters were too earnest for you; too schmaltzy. You wrote notes. That one you sent me that sits bound in sticky tape above my hard drive. The last one. The Last Note. Sounds like a bloody thriller title. One of those door-stopping pulp fiction paperbacks you were always reading. The last note. That killer line you left me with that always gets me all wet-eyed and longing: “You have done all the right things”. I use that on the girls. You have done all the right things. Not all the spectacular things. Not all the showy things. Just the right things.

Beth finished primary school this year and she’s excited about high school and you would have lost your shit, Dad, last Friday when the principal handed her the hallowed “spirit of the school” award. The things they said about her. The right things. Never the girl who gets the spotlight, never the showy kid. Just the quiet kid who cares a great deal about a great many things. And you know who was the most happy for her? It was Sylvie. Nine-year-old cyclone Sylvie, who, you’d probably be secretly happy to know, is still not quite as possessed by the spirit of Catholic saints but more, like you, the spirit of Keith Richards.

I did end up writing that book I told you about. I called it Boy Swallows Universe. That title’s a newspaper headline, but it means what it says. Swallow it all, right? The good stuff, the bad stuff, the beautiful stuff, the mad stuff. You taught me that. Swallow it down then cough it back up as words. Surprise everybody. It’s all in there. Mum, you, the boys, Slim, that feller, that other feller and, yep, him, too.

I even put Fangorn in there. The indoor weeping fig you named after a talking tree from The Lord of the Rings. Ol’ Fangorn who used to cop all the durry butts. Toughest bloody plant in all of Housing Commission Bracken Ridge. Ol’ Fangorn who we’d wrap in a balding stretch of tinsel and push into the corner of the living room and call a Christmas tree. Gifts under the tree wrapped in old Courier-Mail pages. Paul Keating’s contorted newspaper face under the tree talking about the recession we had to have. Merry Christmas Dalton boys. We owe Keating a lot, I reckon. His commitment to social housing meant you could raise four boys in a small brick home impervious to Queensland summer storms for less than $50 a week in rent. Merry Christmas Paul.

Old books we’d wrap up and hand to each other as new Christmas presents. Dodgy gifts from the St Vinnie’s discount bin. Remember that time you bought Ben that small square of floppy orange plastic for Christmas? Just what every young Bracken Ridge tearaway needs, a grip pad to open stubborn jam jar lids. Remember the Christmas boxes Mr Caffry – my old school principal – would drop off to us? Tins of Golden Circle pineapple pieces. Canned ham. Licorice All-Sorts. The whole range of Kirk’s soft drinks. I thought we’d won the bloody lotto.

Remember that Christmas when there was nothing more that I wanted to see under that tree than a Super Nintendo computer console and I rushed to that tree that December 25 morning filled with inexplicable and misguided hope and I opened up my present that year to find you’d gifted me a black bathroom towel. Not even a beach towel that spoke of certain trips to Bribie Island and King’s Beach, Caloundra. No, this was your standard black bathroom towel. “Bathroom towels aren’t supposed to be Christmas presents, Dad,” I said. “Bathroom towels are supposed to be provided. Bathroom towels are a given. You might as well have wrapped up a roll of Sorbent.” I was such a dream-filled git. “Worst Christmas ever,” I hollered that day, like a spoiled brat. But I take that back, wholeheartedly, Dad. That was the best Christmas ever, because that’s the one we remember. That’s the one we laugh about most and all us boys would give anything to be handed a five buck Big W towel by you again this Christmas.

A fair few people liked the book, Dad. I see them reading it across Australia and they’re enjoying themselves. You’re making them laugh and you’re making them cry and every time I see that book on a shelf somewhere I think about how much you’d have loved that sight. Maybe you can see it. I wrote it for you, Dad. That’s my gift to you this Christmas. Not a bathroom towel. Not a jam jar grip. A story. A love story where you’re a central character. You still are that central character. You always will be. Merry Christmas, Dad, and thanks for all of it. You did all the right things.

Written with love and thanks for every last elf in the Better Reading community. Merry Christmas and thanks for the extraordinary support. Trent Dalton

About the author

Trent Dalton is a staff writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine and former assistant editor of The Courier Mail. He’s a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a three-time winner of a Kennedy Award for Excellence in NSW Journalism and a four-time winner of the national News Awards Features Journalist of the Year.

Read our review of Boy Swallows Universe here.

Purchase a copy of Boy Swallows Universe here.

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                      Trent Dalton
                      About the author

                      Trent Dalton

                      Trent Dalton is the author of Boy Swallows Universe (HarperCollins, 2018), a critically acclaimed national bestseller and winner of the 2019 Indie Book of the Year Award, the MUD Literary Prize, and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the People's Choice Award at the 2019 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. At the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards, the book won a record four awards, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award. Boy Swallows Universe has been published across thirty-four English language and translation territories. His second novel, All Our Shimmering Skies, was published by HarperCollins in October 2020 and has also become a national bestseller. He's also a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a four-time winner of a Kennedy Award for Excellence in NSW Journalism and a four-time winner of the national News Awards Features Journalist of the Year.

                      Photo credit: David Kelly

                      Books by Trent Dalton

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                      1. Annie Van Berlo says:

                        What a beautiful letter filled with memories of times that were obviously hard but rewarding! I lost my dad recently and would love to think that he died knowing I had “done all the right things!”

                      2. Kecia Sandford-Clisby says:

                        Raw, honest & beautiful could sum up Boy Swallows Universe. I loved reading this note and just like the book, it made me laugh, cry and smile. I read Boy Swallows Universe several months ago but it continues to stay with me and I constantly tell people to read it!

                      3. Dorothy King says:

                        So moved by this Christmas Note. Amazing where and why a reader finds out about a new author. It only took a few lines to hook me, I know I am going to love “A Boy Swallows the Universe”.