True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey

True History of the Kelly Gang is a historical novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. Published in 2000, it was the 2001 winner of the Booker Prize. Despite claiming to be a true history, the book is fiction, but is based loosely on actual events in Kelly's life. The story is separated into thirteen sections allegedly fashioned from original manuscripts written by Ned Kelly himself. The novel is written in a distinguishing dialect, with a minimum of punctuation or grammar. The style is based upon Kelly's only surviving piece of writing. Ned Kelly is an iconic Australian figure. This standing, despite the simplistic characterisation of Kelly as a 'bushranger' ...  Read the complete review

“I lost my own father at 12yr 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.” And so the story of Ned Kelly begins... Born in 1855 in a remote section of the Australian colony of Victoria, Ned Kelly was raised in a life of hardship. As the son of an Irish convict, life was particularly harsh and never pleasant for young Ned and his family. At the time, the ruling class despised the Irish immigrants and both the police and the justice system were thoroughly ...  Read the complete review

I was twenty-five when the b----rs hanged me for murder in 1880. My gang had tried to derail a train full of police reinforcements sent to capture us. I'd survived the gun battle thanks to the iron helmet and body armour I wore but one of the b------s shot me in the leg. Such is life. G'day readers I am the ghost of Ned Kelly. I heard Mr. Peter Carey had written my life story so I've come back to read it. He calls it the "True History…" and pretends they are my own words the cheeky b----r. Knowing me to be uneducated in the ways of parsing and suchlike he has made his grammar poorer so it may sound more True. He hasnt used ...  Read the complete review

The Booker Prize 2001 was a proverbial two-horse race between 'The True History of the Kelly Gang' and Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' and in all honesty any sense of justice would have seen a stewards enquiry after Peter Carey's novel was victorious. Compared to the elegant realism of the runner-up, Carey has both the subtlety and finesse of a policeman's clumsy boot into the much deserving Ned Kelly's posterior. Since this is from someone who has been a long-serving Carey and McEwan fan so there can be no accusation of bias but it has to be said that 'The Kelly Gang' is neither compelling, compulsive or particularly interesting. A ...  Read the complete review

As an Australian, I would just like to point out that the Ned Kelly episode had very little to do with the British or indeed Australia, and that all the players in the drama were Irish. The gang's members -- including Kelly, Byrne and Hart -- were all Irish; the policemen Kelly murdered -- Lonigan, Scanlon and Kennedy -- were all born in Ireland. The judge who sentenced Kelly, Barry, was also Irish. For those unfamiliar with the story, Kelly came from a criminal family. His grandfather, father and himself were thieves and thugs preying on the Irish community, which made up the population of the area. His sister was a prostitute and his mother her pimp, as ...  Read the complete review