Pages tagged “peter carey”

The Outback? Far out

It’s the social revolution of the ’60s and ’70s. Seven-year-old Che has been kidnapped by a hippie named Dial Well (if “kidnapping” is a term that can be used when a child is taken to see his radical mother).

In a series of dramatic turns, Che and Dial find themselves in a commune in sweltering Australia. Stripped from his restrictive yet cushy life with his “Upper East Side” grandmother, Che feels utterly misplaced in the Outback: “The boy had no idea where on Earth he stood. He understood the names of hardly anything, himself included.”

Carey, two-time winner of the Booker Prize, has written an addictive, intriguing, beautiful story about innocence—and what it means to be completely lost. His writing blends ingenious analogies, stunning imagery and lovely melodic flow in a fantastical story that pushes fiction to the limit. It’s a story that is sometimes crazy, but always in the best possible way.