His Illegal Self
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| Author | Peter Carey |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary |
| Publisher | Random House, Australia |
Publication date | 2008 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 270 pp |
| ISBN | 9781741665352 |
| Preceded by | Theft: A Love Story |
| Followed by | Parrot and Olivier in America |
His Illegal Self is a 2008 novel by Australian author Peter Carey. It was shortlisted for the 2008 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and longlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Plot summary
The narrator of Peter Carey's new novel usually calls the boy at its centre "the boy". But the boy's name, Che Selkirk, isn't a mystery for long, and the reader soon learns how he got it. It's 1972 - in other words, still the 60s, which are said to have ended two years later - and Che, aged seven, is being brought up in New York by Phoebe Selkirk, his absent mother's mother. Phoebe, an imperious east coast heiress, won't let him near a television set in case there's upsetting news about his parents, Susan Selkirk and David Rubbo. Susan, once an upper-class student leader, and David, her radical Harvard classmate, are on the run from the FBI as a result of their Weathermen-like revolutionary activities. The boy isn't meant to know about all this, but thanks to a long-haired teenaged neighbour he thinks he knows a "Maoist fraction" when he sees one. He hopes that his famous parents will come back for him one day.[1]
Awards
- 2003 won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript
- 2010 longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Notes
The novel carried the following dedication:
"For Bel"
Reviews
- The New York Times: "In His Illegal Self, Peter Carey draws as much magic from the muslin of contemporary speech as he has previously from the lustrous velvet of his more fanciful prose. This novel marks a departure — an altogether successful one — for the versatile author, who usually paints gorgeous whorls of story around outlandish figures from the untouchable past, real or imagined: gamblers and dreamers, circus freaks, outlaws, prodigals and passionate eccentrics."[2]
- The Sydney Morning Herald: "The opening chapters are a tour de force, a virtuoso performance by a writer fully confident of his powers and, in a way, of his ability to get away with anything."[3]