Synopsis

 don’t know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen. It is certainly a love story but that did not begin until midway through the shitty stuff, by which time I had not only lost my eight-year-old son, but also my house and studio in Sydney where I had once been as famous as a painter could expect in his own backyard . . .

So begins Peter Carey’s highly charged and lewdly funny new novel. Told by the twin voices of the artist Butcher Bones and his ‘damaged 220-pound brother’ Hugh, it recounts their adventures and troubles after Butcher’s plummeting prices and spiralling drink problem force them to retreat to northern New South Wales. Here the formerly famous artist is reduced to being a caretaker for his biggest collector, and the nurse for his erratic brother. Then the mysterious Marlene turns up one stormy night, clad in a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Claiming that the brothers’ friend and neighbour owns an original Jacques Liebovitz, she soon sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making or ruin of them all.

About the Author

Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Australia and lives in New York. He is the author of the highly acclaimed selection of short stories, The Fat Man in History, eight novels, Bliss, Illywhacker (shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize), Oscar and Lucinda (winner of the 1988 Booker Prize), The Tax Inspector, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs (winner of the 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize), True History of the Kelly Gang (winner of the 2001 Booker Prize) and My Life as a Fake, as well as a book for children, The Big Bazoohley and a memoir, Wrong About Japan.   More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation