Book Review: Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton
Lola in the Mirror is the latest book by Trent Dalton, critically acclaimed author of bestselling Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies. Set in his hometown of Brisbane, Australia, the main character is a nameless girl, whose name for herself is 'the artist'. She is living rough with her mother in a van with four flat tyres, parked in an abandoned panel beater's yard by the river in the West End, a spot they share with an assortment of other homeless characters (aka floaters). She dreams of becoming a great artist, and of bringing an exhibition of her life's work to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her mother refuses to tell her her real name - they have been on the run for 16 years as her mother had killed her father while dancing the 'Tyrannosaurus waltz.' The girl is about to turn 18, officially an adult and beyond the jurisdiction of child welfare services, and her mother is planning to hand herself over to the police.
An unexpected event happens, and the girl is on her own, with a car key left to her by her mother. With Charlie Mould, a friend and fellow floater, she sets out to find the car the key belongs to. When she does her world is turned upside down. She takes over her mother's drug couriers' run and, like Eli Bell in Boy Swallows Universe, mixes with unsavoury thugs in the Brisbane underworld. Imaginative, brave and worldly wise, the artist navigates this precarious world, and with help from a community of floaters, police and a prince on the Victoria bridge, she manages to escape the clutches of her drug boss and ultimately learns who she really is.
The setting of Brisbane is a fundamental element in this story, as it was in Boy Swallows Universe, and is a place Trent Dalton clearly loves. I lived in Brisbane in the early eighties, in Highgate Hill, the neighbourhood adjacent to the West End, and while reading this I felt transported back in time to navigate the territory he writes about. The novel is set in 2023-2024 as the city begins preparing for hosting the 2032 Olympic Games. At its heart is the plight of the burgeoning homeless in the city, who are the people most vulnerable to climate change and scarcity of land and housing. It is estimated that nearly 2% of the Brisbane population is homeless on any given night. Trent writes with enormous compassion and empathy for his homeless characters, and you have the sense he has personal knowledge of people living on the margins. This was confirmed in an interview with Kim Hill on RNZ, Saturday 30th September. As a journalist in social affairs with the Courier Mail he interviewed many marginalised people and heard their stories about mental illness, domestic abuse and childhood trauma. Kim asked him to describe the genre he writes in - he settled on magic realism mixed with crime. If this piques your curiosity, or if you love Trent Dalton’s writing already - read this book. A compelling and heartwarming story.
Afterword - A television adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe is coming soon to Netflix.