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True History of the Kelly Gang

Best Seller
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Paperback $16.95
Dec 04, 2001 | ISBN 9780375724671

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  • Dec 04, 2001 | ISBN 9780375724671

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  • Dec 18, 2007 | ISBN 9780307429834

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Product Details

Praise

“A spectacular feat of imagination.”—The Boston Globe

“Vastly entertaining…. Triumphantly eclectic, as if Huck Finn and Shakespeare had joined forces to prettify the legend of Jesse James.”—The New York Times

“The ingenuity, empathy, and poetic ear that the novelist brings to his feat of imposture cannot be rated too high.”—John Updike, The New Yorker

“Carey succeeds in creating an account that not only feels authentic but also passes as a serious novel and solid, old-fashioned ‘entertainment.’ A big, meaty novel, blending Dickens and Cormac McCarthy with a distinctly Australian strain of melancholy.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A bravura performance…. Rewards the persistent reader with a powerful emotional experience.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Carey’s pen writes with an ink that is two parts archaic and one part modern and colors a prose that rocks and cajoles the reader into a certainty that Ned Kelly is fit company not only for Jack Palance and Clint Eastwood but for Thomas Jefferson and perhaps even a bodhisattva.”—Los Angeles Times

“The power and charm of [this book] arise not from fidelity to facts but rather from the voice Carey invents for Ned Kelly….”—Time

“So adroit that you never doubt it’s Kelly’s own words you’re reading in the headlong, action-packed story.”—Newsweek

“This novel is worth our best attention.”—The Washington Post Book World

“An avalanche of a novel…. Cary has raised a national legend to the level of an international myth.”—Christian Science Monitor

“Packed with incident, alive with comedy and pathos . . . contains pretty much everything you could ask of a novel.” —The New York Times Book Review

Awards

Booker Prize WINNER 2001

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award FINALIST 2002

Author Essay

On publication of True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey compiled a series of archival photographs that were pivotal in his imagining of the characters and the moments of the novel. On his desktop, you can view the photographs and listen to Carey discuss their significance. You may also visit the Australian Library’s website dedicated to the Jerilderie Letter, a long letter written by Ned Kelly from the heat of the struggle of the Gang against law enforcement.

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