Chatting Love, Ambition, & A New Book With Author Trent Dalton
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
By Victoria Lewis | 2nd October 2025Trent Dalton, the acclaimed journalist and author behind the novel–turned–Netflix–hit, Boy Swallows Universe, is back at it again with his new book Gravity Let Me Go. We chat hard truths, the cost of storytelling, and always choosing love.
If anyone is qualified to speak on love, it’s Trent Dalton. It’s the thing that drives him. A sentimental man who holds his dear city of Brisbane close, and his family closer, he seems to fall in love over and over again – with his home, his wife, his two children, his job, his stories, even his beloved pints at The Normanby Hotel.
Having already written about love in so many of its glorious, painstaking forms, including his joyous, tumultuous childhood detailed in the semi-autobiographical Boy Swallows Universe, Dalton now hones in on the intricacies of long-lasting marriage for his “most personal book yet.”
His new release, Gravity Let Me Go, sees Dalton pull out the vulnerable parts of himself, and his shortcomings, writing a lead character he says is filled “with every failing I feel I’ve had as an adult man.” He says it’s the 100% fictional but “100% honest” culmination of a real-life wake-up call he experienced within his own marriage – a lesson he had to learn about the cost of his self-diagnosed ‘storytelling addiction.’
“There’s been times in my life where I’ve lost sight of the really important things in life because I was chasing… I was kind of blinded by a little bit of ambition.”
Looking in the mirror, heartstrings exposed, Dalton sees himself as the young, ambitious journalist desperate for the story of a lifetime, momentarily losing sight of the real scoop, the most important story right in front of him – his own love story. To Dalton, the secret lies within “remembering the great story that exists inside your own home.”
It is thus only fitting that Dalton came to this realisation after asking 200 strangers for their thoughts on love for his book, and now touring theatre production, Love Stories. The irony is not lost on him that his own wife, Fiona Franzmann – who’s since co-written an extra story for the stage adaptation – was the last one he interviewed, “like an idiot,” he says, kicking himself. In writing the play, Dalton and Franzmann were able to look back on their 25 years of marriage – dissecting and reflecting on all they have shared, struggled with, overcome, and navigated. The insights of which Dalton says were “illuminating”.
It’s this side of love Dalton is really interested in capturing: the flip side of the ‘meet-cute’ – the complex, raw, and beautiful notions of long-lasting love, flaws and all. He says it took these strangers’ stories to realise, “of course, it’s not about me chasing some scoop or not about me writing some epic novel, it’s about the five people in my life that I love the most, you know?”
His marital love story is one he is eternally proud of. It’s an evolving story marked by the moment an emotional Dalton left a Rosewood church, hand in hand with his new wife, overcome with the sense his life was about to change. Set to the sweet sounds of the Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’, he couldn’t imagine the type of ordinary, epic love story he was in for.
“It’s hilarious how much I thought I would love my wife on my wedding night… having no clue just how deep that love could go.” He reflects on this day, 25 years on, about how this love has transformed over time – “it just got richer and deeper and more complex.” He then adds, like the optimist he is, “but here’s the coolest thing – the road’s still ahead… 25 years later, the road runs on”.
Imagery: Love Stepha
