Anne's Review

This marvelous book is gritty, magical, moving and ultimately unputdownable. This is the new novel by the author of ‘Boy Swallows Universe’ which will be well known to many of you.

A girl, and the person we think is her mother, Erica Findley, are on the run. They live in Toyota van with four flat tyres in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River – just two of the 100,000 Australians sleeping rough.

The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you are on the run. Neither does she have any income.  She is therefore forced to run drugs for the Mafia like Flora Box.

However, she does cling to one dream. That of being a famous artist in her future and it is because of visions of this future, that she consults with Lola and ‘The Mirror on The Wall’.

This is also a love story and so much more but, of course you must read it to find out more!

ps.  After a couple of chapters I was hooked and could not put the book down.

TRENT DALTON ON LOLA IN THE MIRROR AND WHY HE WROTE IT:

‘There is this incredibly personal and intimate and sometimes terrifying thing that each one of us does every day … I’m talking about looking into the mirror. That deeply confronting moment when it’s all quiet and still and you look deep inside yourself and see all your irretrievable past, all of your tricky present and all your possible futures. I wanted to write a book that felt like that.

It’s an extremely current story about a country neck-deep in a national housing crisis. It’s the story of my city, Brisbane, in the lead-up to hosting an Olympic Games in a state where homelessness has risen by three times the national average. It’s the story of the seventeen years I spent writing social affairs journalism across this country. The book is filled with stories told to me by people sleeping rough across my city, the people living in the nooks and the crannies and the cracks of life. It’s the product of sitting on a street corner for three months, watching people and asking them about love and loss and belonging – my book Love Stories was in fact a research project for this new novel. Lola in the Mirror is a love story, first. But it’s also a story of art, crime, mystery and, most of all, life.’

Lola in the Mirror is a passionate and timely tale of a nation enmeshed in a housing disaster. Focusing on Brisbane in the lead-up to the Olympic Games, this narrative takes an in-depth look at the situation of homelessness, which has tripled the national standard. Drawing on seventeen years as a social affairs journalist, the story weaves together an array of voices from across the city. Through months of observations and conversations about love, loss, and acceptance, this research propelled the novel, Love Stories. Ultimately, this is a story of love, art, and lawlessness, but most of all, life.

Trent Dalton is the international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe – which broke records to become the fastest selling Australian debut novel ever – All Our Shimmering Skies and Love Stories. His books have sold over 1.2 million copies in Australia alone. Boy Swallows Universe has been adapted to a smash-hit theatrical production by Queensland Theatre Company and will shortly be seen as a major Netflix series.
Instagram: @trentdaltonauthor Website: www.harpercollins.com.au/trentdalton