Previous
Boy Receives Letter
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boy Swallows Universe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Goodness, Masculinity, and Coming of Age
Trauma, Coping, and Healing
Family, Love, and Mentorship
Storytelling and Justice
Money, Suburbia, and Criminality
Summary
Analysis
Eli looks through Mum’s half-open bedroom door as she puts on a necklace. She’s dressed up in her fancy red dress, and she’s so beautiful. How could any man—namely Dad—mess this up? It makes Eli so mad. He slips in and tries to ask why she left Dad, but as usual, she refuses to talk about it. She does say that Dad is a good man. Then, Eli asks if August ever scares Mum. He admits August scares him, and he tells Mum about finding Caitlyn Spies’s name in the paper after August was writing her name in the air weeks ago. Mum insists that August just loves how words sound, even if he doesn’t speak.
The way Eli talks about Mum suggests that he sees her as wholly good. Men Eli considers bad, like Dad, have wronged her. Mum insisting that Dad is a good man complicates this, though, as it suggests there’s more to the story than Eli realizes. With what Eli says about August, it seems as though he thinks of his brother as a prophet, which is frightening for him. Mum, though, has a perfectly logical explanation that doesn’t include August being magical or able to see the future.
Themes
Mum asks Eli how she looks. She’s gorgeous, and Eli tells her so—but Mum says she’s “Mutton dressed up as a lamb.” This makes Eli angry, and he tells Mum she’s too good for this house and for Lyle. He insists that “arseholes” keep getting the lamb because the lamb thought she was mutton. Mum tells Eli to stop, but he says she should’ve been a lawyer, not a drug dealer.
Again, it’s clear that Eli adores Mum and is extremely disappointed in how her life has turned out. Part of this is because, as Eli sees it, Mum’s low self-esteem (which may be real, or may just be for show) makes her an easy victim for men Eli doesn’t think are good enough for her.
Themes
Mum slaps Eli and screams at him to get out. Eli screams back that it’s absurd for her to make him eat his vegetables when she and Lyle are dealing drugs. Then, Lyle appears behind Eli and tosses him into the doorframe. Lyle kicks Eli as Eli shouts curses. August tries to get between them, but Lyle grabs Eli by his collar and marches him out the front door.
Eli is acting out because he’s still processing that Mum and Lyle are dealing drugs, and Eli sees this as morally wrong. In his mind, being asked behave himself (by eating his vegetables at dinner) is absurd and hypocritical if Mum and Lyle are doing something as reprehensible as dealing drugs.
Themes
Lyle walks Eli to the cricket pitch. He asks what got into Eli, but Eli starts to cry. Lyle asks if Eli knows why he cries so easily. Eli insists he’s just a “pussy,” but Lyle says that isn’t true: Eli just cares, and he’s not afraid to show it. Lyle then says that Eli is right; Mum is too good for him. They look at the stars and Lyle says that he wants to get out of here; that’s why he works for Tytus Broz. He suggests they make a deal. He needs six months, and then, they can move wherever Eli wants. Eli says he wants to move to The Gap because of the cul-de-sacs, and he agrees to the deal—provided Lyle lets Eli work for him.
In the last passage, Eli made it seem like Lyle is a terrible person. But in this passage, it becomes clear that Eli was just angry and lashing out: Lyle wants to support Eli and Mum, and ideally, he’d do that without the help of drug money. Lyle also makes it clear that he doesn’t like dealing drugs. It’s something he’s doing out of necessity, which speaks to how low-income the family is. Drugs are an attractive choice when it seems like there’s no other way to make money.
Themes
Get the entire Boy Swallows Universe LitChart as a printable PDF.
Soon after, Eli follows his family to Bich Dang’s Vietnamese restaurant. The restaurant’s interior is huge, as big as a cinema. A woman in a sequined dress sings on a stage as Eli follows his family past fish tanks and up to the balcony. This is where Tytus Broz’s 80th birthday party is taking place. Tytus always makes Eli think of bones. He’s wearing a bone-white suit and tie, and his hair is also white. He’s bony and thin. Eli also thinks of bones because Tytus made his fortune creating prosthetics and orthotics at Human Touch, the plant where Lyle works as a mechanic. Teddy, the friend who got Lyle the job, is also at the party. Eli also thinks of bones when he sees Tytus because just seeing Tytus makes Eli shiver.
Tytus is also Lyle’s drug boss, which means he’s living two different lives: one in which he’s the owner of Human Touch, and the other where he’s running a major drug operation. Eli seems to dislike Tytus more for his work with prosthetics. The fact that Tytus manufactures prosthetics is, at face value, a good thing, since he’s helping people with this work. Eli can’t seem to get past his knee-jerk reaction that Tytus is a frightening person, though.
Themes
Eli first met Tytus two years ago, when Lyle had to take Eli and August into work with him. The plant was just a warehouse then, and all the prosthetic limbs terrified Eli. Lyle ushered the boys into Tytus’s office. Behind Tytus’s desk was a painting of Moby Dick, the white whale. (Since learning what Moby-Dick is about, Eli now thinks of the crazy Captain Ahab when he sees Tytus.) Tytus took August’s hand and said there was strength there. Lyle explained August doesn’t talk, and when Tytus laughed about autism, Eli interjected that there was nothing wrong with August. Tytus then felt Eli’s arm and deemed Eli “weak-boned.” Tytus told Eli about the real, plastinated hand on his desk, and Eli told a story proving that August can see the future. Tytus said he’d keep an eye on August.
Eli was only 10 years old when he met Tytus, which may have contributed to how frightened he was (and still is) of Lyle’s boss. Likening Tytus to Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick suggests that Tytus is in search of something elusive, and that whatever that thing is, it might bring him down (the whale Moby Dick ultimately drags Captain Ahab into the ocean in the novel). When Eli is confronted with Tytus, though, what really bothers him is the fact that Tytus speaks rudely and dismissively about August. This is unacceptable to Eli, since he loves his brother; he’ll use his words to defend him, since August can’t use words to defend himself.
Themes
Back in the present, Tytus kisses Mum on both cheeks and then introduces his daughter, Hanna, to his guests. According to Lyle, Hanna inspired Tytus’s prosthetics business, as she was born without forearms and hands. Hanna shakes Mum’s hand with her plastic one and smiles warmly. Then, Eli sees another man, who seems to be made of stone rather than bones. The man is staring at Eli, and Eli feels like he’s seeing things from many vantage points. Tytus calls the man Iwan and jokes that August doesn’t talk, just like Iwan. Iwan says he talks and then picks up a beer. Bich Dang and Darren appear moments later and announce the start of dinner.
It’s not entirely clear what kind of a boss or person Tytus is. On the surface, he doesn’t seem like a bad or frightening person yet: he’s trying to help people like Hanna by running Human Touch. Eli, though, seems not to trust anyone involved with Tytus, so Iwan seems just as frightening as his boss. Eli’s note that he’s seeing things from many vantage points suggests he’s having an out-of-body experience, which hints that this dinner is going to be life-changing for him.
Themes
Eli looks around at everyone at the table, but Darren hisses at him to stop staring at Iwan Krol. Darren refuses to look at Iwan and says it’s Iwan’s job to look disturbing. He apparently owns a llama farm by day, and by night, he “gives people the creeps.” Doing his best to make it sound scary, Darren says Iwan has killed people, but what makes him scary are the rumors. Darren sings a song and laughs, but stops suddenly when Iwan looks his way. Eli begs for more information and says he has to know, since he’s going to start helping Lyle by watching for “details.”
Darren gives some credence to Eli’s gut reaction when he says that Iwan’s entire job is to “give[] people the creeps.” Noting that Iwan runs a llama farm by day also adds more evidence to the idea that criminals don’t have to look a certain way. Iwan’s day job is ordinary to the point of being humorous, but that doesn’t preclude him from also being a scary murderer (if Darren is to be believed).
Themes
To demonstrate what this means, Eli looks around. He doesn’t mention seeing Teddy staring at Mum, but he tells Darren all the little things he notices about their party, such as how Tytus keeps his hand on Hanna’s thigh and how Hanna has barely eaten. Darren admits he didn’t notice a lot of those things and agrees to tell Eli about Iwan. Darren says that Iwan murdered his own brother 30 years ago, and the body disappeared. Iwan is brilliant because his targets just disappear. Darren says Iwan dismembers his targets—and takes them to Tytus Broz, “the Lord of the Limbs.”
The fact that Tytus keeps his hand on his daughter’s leg makes him seem more menacing, as reads as though he’s trying to control her and possibly touching her in an inappropriate way. Darren continues to establish himself as a valuable source of information when he tells Eli about Iwan’s past criminal activity. He also confirms that Eli is right to be afraid of Tytus Broz, as the nickname “the Lord of the Limbs” sounds sinister.
Themes
On the walk home, Eli hangs back with Lyle as Mum and August pretend to be Olympic gymnasts on some log edging. Eli asks Lyle if he’s thought about the proposition. Lyle just sighs, but Eli insists that the federal police are trying to stop the drug trade by stopping drug importers before they reach Australia. Soon, there won’t be enough drugs—so Lyle and Eli should buy up as much as they can now, bury it, and sell it in a few years when it’s worth more. Lyle tells Eli to stop spending time with Darren. Eli says he can’t drop Darren, since Bich will sell them more heroin if the boys are friends. Soon, they’ll be able to afford two houses in The Gap.
It’s clear that Lyle doesn’t want to involve Eli in his work dealing drugs. He is, perhaps, trying to protect Eli by making sure Eli doesn’t ever have to do illegal work, but this doesn’t sway Eli. Lyle is, after all, doing just fine, so dealing drugs might not seem so dangerous to Eli. Eli’s plan—and Lyle’s wry advice to stop hanging out with Darren—suggest that Lyle knows how dramatic Darren can be, and that he doesn’t take anything Darren says seriously. But it’s impossible for him to ignore how serious Eli is, and how badly Eli wants to move to The Gap.
Themes
Eli has no answer when Lyle asks what happens when Tytus finds out and sends Iwan after them. Eli kicks a soft drink can, and Lyle scolds Eli to pick it up. Lyle says this neighborhood was once as nice as The Gap until people stopped taking care of it. Eli insists heroin is to blame, but he picks the can up and says, “The drop in the lake.” Seeing Lyle’s confused expression, Eli explains his theory.
Lyle as much as confirms Darren’s story about Iwan’s murderous side job. This suggests that Lyle’s job dealing drugs for Tytus might not be as secure as Eli thinks it is. As Lyle and Eli argue over the can, Eli misses the fact that heroin use is likely a symptom of the financial struggles and hopelessness that pervade this suburb.
Themes
Eli says for Mum, the drop in the lake happened when her dad left when she was a teen. This caused Mum to drop out of school, hitchhike around the country, and get kidnapped. She met Dad when she escaped her kidnapper’s car and asked road workers for help. Lyle sighs and insists that Eli can’t help him, and that he should stop asking questions about Iwan, too. But Eli says he can see things Lyle can’t see, like Teddy falling in love with Mum.
Eli is trying to make himself sound smart so he can impress Lyle, but he’s also trying to explain things he doesn’t understand in a way that makes sense to him. He’s very concerned with figuring out how his family ended up the way it did. Blaming Mum’s dad is a way for Eli to not have to blame Mum, as Eli adores Mum too much to even consider blaming her for anything.
Themes
