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True History of the Kelly Gang
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Synopsis
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey gives Ned Kelly a voice so wild, passionate and original that it is impossible not to believe that the famous bushranger himself is speaking from beyond the grave. True History of the Kelly Gang is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and delicate, menacing and heart-wrenching. Carey gives us Ned Kelly as orphan, as Oedipus, as horse thief, farmer, bushranger, reformer, bank-robber, police-killer and, finally, as his country's beloved Robin Hood.
Comparison: Joseph O'Connor, John Banville, Simon Mawer
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Reviews
'Peter Carey has produced some very fine novels before now, but this, I would say, is his finest.'
Daily Telegraph
'[Peter Carey is] without question the pre-eminent literary voice of post-colonial Australia, he loves to take risks.'
Guardian
'Contains pretty much everything you could ask of a novel.'
New York Times Book Review
Carey's seventh novel narrates the brief and violent life of Australian bushranger Ned Kelly. Much of the life is folk-history; the story-telling genius lies in the voice Carey has found for Ned. It is both utterly convincing and yet continually surprising, creating new pleasures on every page. Kelly's knowledge of punctuation extends no further than the full stop, so the prose hurtles along unimpeded by commas, colons, and apostrophes, spilling information before us just like an excited speaking voice. It is a voice dedicated to honesty ('this story is for you [his unseen daughter] and will contain no single lie may I burn in hell if I speak false'), direct, practical, carefully prudish ('It were eff this and ess that and she would blow their adjectival brains out'), which frequently breaks into sudden brilliance of image and colour. On the run with his beloved Mary and her sick child, Ned hears a horseman following and forces her into a hiding place in a stream, then stands waiting, gun cocked. 'A fright of blood red parrots flared and swept through the khaki forest.
Kelly
's story is enough to make you weep; his father dies when he is 12, and his mother takes her tribe of children to a government land selection at 11 Mile Creek, where trees need clearing and fences building, and she sells illegal grog to make ends meet. She also sells Ned to Harry Power, who takes him out on a spree of highway robbery, which ends with 15-year-old Ned's arrest. From then on the hostility of the police to the poor Irish in general and the Kelly family in particular, is enough to foil Ned's every attempt to go straight. Kelly is a true folk hero, a bush Robin Hood, bouncing up from every setback with cartoon-character optimism - but in his language he comes alive, his deadpan humour and sharp understanding are made real, and the legend becomes a man. He describes his sweetheart Mary critically overlooking his writing as 'like a steel nibbed kookaburra on the fences in the morning sun' - a description that could equally well be applied to the authorial intelligence behind Ned's voice. Reviewed by Jane Rogers, author of Promised Lands (Kirkus UK)'
About the Author
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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.
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Book Info
Format
Paperback
432 pages
Author
Peter Carey
More books by Peter Carey
Publisher
Faber and Faber
Publication
date
30th November 2001
ISBN
9780571209873
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