So it seems a bit rich for anyone to claim True History as a Great American Novel… until you read on and see what the Knopf blurber is doing. After that The Chemistry of Tears (2012) was set in London, (my review here) and then there was A Long Way Home (2017) which brought him back to an Australian setting, see my review). He didn’t set a novel in the US till he’d been there for 20 years ( Parrot and Olivier in America, 2010, see my review). (Except that some of the outlaws want to escape to it.) In fact, it looks as if Carey isn’t much interested in writing ‘American’ novels.
Exhilarating, hilarious, panoramic, and immediately engrossing, it is also - at a distance of many thousands of miles and more than a century - a Great American Novel.Ī Great American Novel? True, Carey has lived in the US since 1990, but that doesn’t necessarily make him American and True History has nothing to do with America. Out of nineteenth century Australia rides a hero of his people and a man for all nations, in this masterpiece by the Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs. However, reading the jacket blurb of the US first edition published by Knopf in 2000 offers an interesting frisson for the Australian reader.
In 2002 it was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC award and it won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Roman in 2003. Prestigious as that award is, it was swamped the following year in 2001 when True History won the Booker, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book Overall, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction.
The Margaret and Colin Roderick Award, which recognises the best Australian book of the year that deals with any aspect of Australian life, was first to recognise True History of the Kelly Gang in 2000, the year of its publication by UQP. It doesn’t have the dustjacket, but as you will see, I like it better the way it is. I bought the US first edition first, but I waited patiently until an affordable true first UQP edition came my way.
For ages I have had two editions of this novel on my TBR in my collection of Booker Prize winners. As regular readers will know, it was this month’s #6Degrees that prompted me to read Peter Carey’s award-winning True History of the Kelly Gang.
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