Trent Dalton is a prize-winning Australian novelist and journalist. In 2020, on Christmas Day, Kathleen Kelly, his old friend and journalism colleague, died at the age of 89 and bequeathed Dalton her sky-blue Olivetti typewriter. Kath had written hundreds of pieces on that machine, mainly letters urging politicians and church leaders to do right. Kathleen’s life had been filled with love and, although exactly how the idea came to him is uncertain, Dalton decided to use her typewriter to write stories of love.
He set up a small table and two chairs and his Olivetti at the corner of Adelaide and Albert streets in Brisbane and put up a little sign: “Sentimental Writer Collecting Love Stories.” If you promise to listen, people will speak. For weeks, strangers sat down and told him the stories of their love relationships, how they found love, or how they defined love. They spoke of adult love, love for children, for parents, friends. It is a charming read. Dalton typed them out and here are 43 of them, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Helen and Norm were good friends for two years before he kissed her. When she asked why it took so long, Norm said he never got a chance. “You always had a cigarette in your mouth.” They were together for more than forty years. There are several stories urging us to move along, not waste time. But in another chapter we are advised that our hugs, usually 3 seconds long, are too short to do real good. Hug longer.
But the story told by Sakura, a 37-year-old Japanese/Australian woman is very different. She met a man online, had a four-month romance with him, then married. Friends said “Follow your heart.” “What could possibly go wrong?” Well. Sakura says she now thinks people “put too much weight on romance.” “Follow your heart, she whispers. Ha! Follow it right into hell.” This is, of course, the exception. More often, the blazing romance and marriage morphs into best-friendship, and that can be a very good thing.
There are many, many stories of love, all kinds. Gay Australians told Dalton their stories and often there were difficulties to overcome. It’s not always human love, exactly. One guest at his table told of her passionate love for the city of Brisbane. Age is not an issue. He is told of the love affair of an 85-year-old man with a 91-year-old woman. He’s her “boy toy.” A woman sits and explains that she and her lover have had an open relationship for 13 years. She “is all for monogamy, as long as you’re growing.”
Dalton’s own love life is in good shape. He loves his wife and two daughters but also writes love letters, so to speak to Joni Mitchell and Whitney Houston. He thanks Joni for her truths and wisdom and assures Whitney that he will all--waaaays love her.
