Gravity Let Me Go - Trent Dalton (2025)

 

Rating: Mediocre

Trent Dalton novels have been a massive success in Australia right from the off, with his debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe (2018), being long listed for the Miles Franklin Award, and then made into a TV series in 2024. It sold oodles, as did his successive releases, such as Lola in the Mirror (2023) and, no doubt, Gravity Let Me Go, as we speak, right now. This novel is my first Dalton experience due to the book club voting overwhelming in favour of giving it a go. So, what is Gravity Let Me Go all about? Well, its many things, a crime narrative, an examination of the modern Australian male and all his failings, the nature of crime journalism; all spiced up with touches of magic realism, a narrative form that doesn’t crop up much these days. The novel follows Noah Cork, as he navigates not only the release of his new book about the unsolved murder of Tamsin Fellows that occurred in the very Brisbane suburb he lives in, the (fictional) Jubilee, but also a severe case of testicular pain, an unhappy wife, and the unending challenge of taking care of his two teenage daughters. It all seems a bit much, as does his attempt at leaving his suburb in the opening chapters, in which we meet many of the recurring characters, such as Ellis, an annoying retired neighbour and Jim, a cop who handily lives on Cork’s street, considering he’s a true crime writer. All the clues you need to solving what is really going on in the novel are presented to you as Cork is trying to leave Jubilee to attend what turns out to be a very entertainingly problematic interview and book launch (big hint - his testicles feature strongly...).

So, what’s Gravity Let Me Go like? About halfway through it occurred to me that the novel, particularly the first third, is akin to a hyperactive puppy that will not sit still, it is all over you and irritates the hell out of you. About halfway through things settle down a bit when the narrative becomes more crime focused; more like a murder mystery, rather than a manic ride through Cork's ADHD like brain. Noah Cork has been sent a note by a killer that led to him finding the body of Tamsin Fellows, which led him to obsessively write a true crime book that he hopes will solve all of his financial problems, but in doing so has laid bare the inherent problems in his life. However, Noah Cork is a hard protagonist to like, with his inner voice of endless musings about his problems and how he doesn’t really know how to solve them, which all becomes increasingly grating. Plot often takes a back seat, but when it doesn't the novel miraculously improves. There’s the previously mentioned smatterings of magical realism that include nods to The Wizard of Oz (1939), mainly involving his wife, Rita, who has also decided to become mute and could be the one writing ‘gravity let me go’ in the steam on the bathroom mirror. The teen children are well written characters, with Erin and Clem providing opportunities for some insight and wisdom from the mouths of babes, most of which Noah finds mystifying. With Gravity Let Me Go Dalton could have been onto something, with themes about obsession, responsibility and the moral ambiguities of using victims’ suffering as a means to make a living, but instead the incessant ockerisms, Cork’s manic thought spirals and a sneaky suspicion that Dalton is just trying way to hard to amuse and entertain spoils what could have been a deeper and more complex novel. It's a pity, as I suspect that he is a much better writer than the evidence of this novel suggests.