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Author Carey's Book Reviews

Jack Maggs
This is an updated version of Dickens' “Great Expectations” told from the point of view of the criminal, Magwitch. Jack Maggs is both the title of the book and the main character. He is the equivalent of the Magwitch character in “Great Expectations.” As an Australian it was natural that Peter Carey felt more sympathy toward the British criminal transported to Australia, and he didn't feel that the classic Dickens book did justice to the Magwitch charact...
Parrot and Olivier in America
This is a book about an unlikely pairing of aristocrat and commoner, Frenchman and Englishman, and France and America. As the title suggests, there are two main characters in this novel, the French aristocrat Olivier (based off Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of the 1835 book, "Democracy in America") and Parrot, a lower class Englishman. For most of the book, Olivier comes off as a prig, and your sympathy and affection are for the downtrodden and very ...
True History of the Kelly Gang (Literature)
Ned Kelly, who lived in Australia, fights police corruption. He doesn't win....
True History of the Kelly Gang (Biography)
The book is written from notes left behind from Ned himself, so reads as an autobiography. It gives context to the life of Australia's most infamous bushranger, and details the events that led to his downfall and death....

Carey booklist

True History of the Kelly Gang (Thriller/Action)
Ned Kelly is the Australian Robin Hood - an underprivileged and unjustly persecuted man forced against the arm of the law due to injustice. Carey's story is set against the backdrop of the rural outback, and is written as the undiscovered memoirs of the great criminal, left for his daughter to hear his testimony. The memoirs tell how his family were harassed by the racist police, and how they attempted to deal with their problems. Tales of his childhood ...