Book Review – Gravity Let Me Go by Trent Dalton

This was one my husband bought.

We both purchased several novels to read for an upcoming trip, but as he was still reading the Liza Minnelli I was keen to read, while I finished both my Anita Heiss and my Holden Sheppard, I started reading the Trent Dalton he hadn’t read yet.

I’d only read Boys Swallows Universe, and as that took me a while to finish, I didn’t expect Gravity Let Me Go to be a page turner.

I describe this as surreal noir. 

Noah Cork is a crime journalist who is haunted by images of a murder victim he has written a book about. He also has two daughters and a wife who has taken a vow of silence. The cop who lives in his street used to like him, until Noah compromised the very murder investigation the police are still trying to solve.

But the prose is not as straight forward as the plot sounds. Much of it feels like an ongoing waking dream as Noah deals with some very strange encounters. One of these are the weird thoughts of one of his daughters, eventually making Noah question her sanity. I enjoyed the imagination behind all of this immensely.

The novel wraps up the mystery really well. 

After that, it gets odd. I’m still trying to work out how I feel about the ending. I guess the best way to describe the final pages is it reverts back to feeling like fantasy as a way to resolve a personal issue Noah has faced. But I don’t feel it did, and that one issue was the one I really wanted to understand.

Four stars.