Gritty, Magical and Moving: Read an Extract from Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton

Gritty, Magical and Moving: Read an Extract from Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton

My mother danced the Tyrannosaurus Waltz.

It is the dance of mothers and their monsters. The Tyrannosaurus Waltz is traditionally performed in the kitchen of any ordinary home, anywhere in Australia. The dance requires a young mother to hold her baby to her chest and stand before the monster who pretends to love them.

‘Please let me go,’ says the mother.

‘Not with my daughter,’ says the monster. ‘I will kill you first.’

And then the waltz can begin. Mother leads, monster follows.

She takes one step to her left and the monster takes one step to his right to block her. The mother then takes one step to her right and the monster takes one step to his left. And now they are dancing.

Mum says I will never dance the Tyrannosaurus Waltz. ‘You will not dance with monsters,’ she says. ‘But one day you will dance with a prince.’

The Tyrannosaurus Waltz can end in any number of ways, but the most shocking and spectacular way to end the dance requires the mother to take a paring knife from the dish rack beside the kitchen sink and thrust it into the soft flesh beneath the monster’s Adam’s apple. Mother and baby must then run for their lives. And never stop running.

This is how you dance the Tyrannosaurus Waltz…

Continue reading the extract here…

Buy a copy of Lola in the Mirror here.

Reviews

A Unique and Big-Hearted Novel: Read Our Review of Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton

Review | Our Review

11 October 2023

A Unique and Big-Hearted Novel: Read Our Review of Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton

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        Publisher details

        Lola in the Mirror
        Author
        Trent Dalton
        Publisher
        HarperCollins
        Genre
        Fiction
        Released
        04 October, 2023
        ISBN
        9781460759844

        Synopsis

        Voted at #1 in the Better Reading Top 100 of 2024...A girl and her mother are on the lam. They've been running for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in the kitchen with the knife in his throat. They've found themselves a home inside an orange 1987 Toyota HiAce van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River – just two of the 100,000 Australians sleeping rough every night.The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you're on the run. But the girl has a dream. Visions in black ink and living colour. A vision of a life as a groundbreaking artist of international acclaim. A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen 'Lady' Flora Box. A life of love with the boy in the brown suit who's waiting for her in the middle of the bridge that stretches across a flooding and deadly river. A life far beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there's only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person's name is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can sometimes ever do. She must look in the mirror.A big, moving, blackly funny, violent, heartbreaking and beautiful novel of love, fate, life and death and all the things we see when we look in the mirror. All of the past, all of the present, and all of our possible futures.
        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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