Boy Swallows Universe Themes

Boy Swallows Universe follows 12-year-old Eli Bell for seven years, as he starts to come of age in various suburbs of Brisbane, Australia in the mid- to late 1980s. As Eli gradually becomes aware of the fact that his idyllic life isn’t as idyllic as he initially thought (his mum’s boyfriend Lyle, whom Eli adores, is selling heroin, and Eli’s regular babysitter is convicted killer and prison escape artist Slim Halliday), Eli starts…

Boy Swallows Universe is very concerned with how trauma manifests and affects people’s lives, particularly when the sufferers are children. Early in the novel, many things in Eli and August’s lives seem magical, fantastical, or simply the products of young boys’ wild imaginations. August and Eli both hear a mysterious, wise voice supposedly belonging to an adult version of August on the other end of a red telephone—but that telephone supposedly can’t receive…

From the very beginning of Boy Swallows Universe, when protagonist Eli is only 12 years old, Eli’s goal in life is to be a crime reporter for The Courier-Mail. This goal is inspired by Eli’s love of words and storytelling, as well as his close friendship with his babysitter, the elderly convicted murder Slim Halliday. For the last few years that Slim has been babysitting Eli and Eli’s older brother, August…

Eli’s coming-of-age story exposes the fact that the Brisbane suburbs of the mid-to-late 1980s are in no way as idyllic as one might expect—indeed, Eli indicates that the various suburbs where he lives and hangs out are full of “small-time criminals” who turn to crime because it provides people in difficult financial situations a way to support their families. This doesn’t mean, though, that Eli’s family and neighbors don’t strive for boring, idyllic, stereotypically…