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Bighearted, gritty, magical and moving, Lola in the Mirror is the irresistible new novel from international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies, Trent Dalton.
‘Mirror, mirror, on the grass, what’s my future? What’s my past?’
A girl and her mother are on the lam. They’ve been running for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in the kitchen with the knife in his throat. They’ve found themselves a home inside an orange 1987 Toyota HiAce van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River – just two of the 100,000 Australians sleeping rough every night.
The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you’re on the run. But the girl has a dream. Visions in black ink and living colour. A vision of a life as a groundbreaking artist of international acclaim. A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen ‘Lady’ Flora Box. A life of love with the boy in the brown suit who’s waiting for her in the middle of the bridge that stretches across a flooding and deadly river. A life far beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there’s only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person’s name is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can sometimes ever do. She must look in the mirror.
A big, moving, blackly funny, violent, heartbreaking and beautiful novel of love, fate, life and death and all the things we see when we look in the mirror. All of the past, all of the present, and all of our possible futures.
‘Mirror, mirror, please don’t lie. Tell me who you are. Tell me, who am I?’
Format: Paperback
Pages: 512
Imprint: HarperCollins AU
Publication date: 04/10/2023
Lola in the Mirror
by Trent Dalton
Review by Jo
From the author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies, this is the story of a creative, resourceful girl searching for who she is, and who she wants to be. She lives with her mother in a van with flat tires in the back of a scrapyard on the banks of the Brisbane River. She has no name, because it could be dangerous to have a name when you’re on the run. We meet her friends – some of the other colourful houseless people who live in her district – and also some darker characters, like Flora Box and her son, the local drug lords.
The girl dreams of becoming a famous artist, and documents her life in black ink drawings that actually appear throughout the book. This is such a unique, memorable device in contemporary fiction that adds so much to the story. As the novel develops, we find out how she came to be living on the streets, and how her life could have been very different. Lola In the Mirror is a gritty, sometimes funny, always heart-felt story of love, fate, life and death.
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