True History of the Kelly Gang
First edition
|
|
| Author | Peter Carey |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Kate Barry |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime, historical novel |
| Publisher | UQP (Australia) |
|
Publication date
|
2000 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Pages | 401pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 52247236 |
| Preceded by | Jack Maggs |
| Followed by | My Life as a Fake |
True History of the Kelly Gang is a historical novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was first published in Brisbane by the University of Queensland Press in 2000. It won the 2001 Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the same year. Despite its title, the book is fiction and a variation on the Ned Kelly story.
In an effort to attract foreign readers to the story, the book's American publisher, Alfred Knopf, heralded the book as a "Great American Novel", even though the novel takes place entirely within Australia. The claim that this book is an "American novel" appears to be based on the fact that author Peter Carey, an Australian, has lived in New York City for many years.
Ned Kelly begins his autobiography with a description of his father, John "Red" Kelly, an Irishman transported to Van Diemen's Land and eventually settling in the colony of Victoria, Australia. After marrying Ned's mother Ellen (née Quinn), the Kellys settle in Avenel, a rural area northeast of Melbourne. Red Kelly is shown to have numerous brushes with the colonial police forces, resulting in his imprisonment and death when his son Ned was twelve years of age.
After the rest of the family resettles in northeast Victoria under the Land Grant Act, Ned's mother attempts to provide for her children by running a shebeen and taking on a series of lovers, including the notorious bushranger Harry Power. Power agrees to take on the young Ned as an apprentice, and provides Ned with knowledge of the land, hideouts, and strategies for bushranging. Kelly eventually leaves Power and returns to his family's settlement, where he is shown making dogged attempts to live an honest lifestyle.
...
Wikipedia