True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel (Vintage International)

Author Peter Carey skilfully makes art from the life story of his country’s greatest outlaw, giving his true measure of that ‘best bloody man’.True History of the Kelly Gang is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in Ned Kelly’s voice. Carey gives us Ned Kelly as an orphan, Oedipus, horse thief, farmer, bushranger, reformer, bank robber, police killer and finally, his country’s beloved Robin Hood. By the time of his hanging in 1880, a whole country would seem to agree that he was ‘the best bloody man that has ever been in Benalla’."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." - Publisher WeeklyPeter Carey is an Australian author who has won the Booker Prize twice, for Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. He has also won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize twice (for Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang), and the Miles Franklin Literary Award three times (for Bliss, Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs). He was also shortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize in 2009 for his entire body of work. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. "I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false." In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist. From the Trade Paperback edition "True History of 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.". "In 1878 Francis Harty, a poor farmer, said, 'Ned Kelly is the best bloody man that has ever been in Benalla, I would fight up to my knees in blood for him - I have known him for years, I would take his word sooner than another man's oath'.". "By the time of his hanging in 1880 a whole country would seem to agree - and it is a measure of Peter Carey's achievement that he has not only made art from his country's great story but that he persuades us all to understand the true measure of that 'best bloody man'."--BOOK JACKET. Ned Kelly, the legendary nineteenth-century Australian folk-hero, describes how he, his brother, and two friends led authorities on a twenty-month manhunt, marked by widespread populist support, before his capture and execution The legend of Ned Kelly, notorious outlaw and bank robber, as written in his own words for an infant daughter he's never seen