Items related to Illywhacker
In Australian slang, an illywhacker is a country fair con man, an unprincipled seller of fake diamonds and dubious tonics. And Herbert Badgery, the 139-year-old narrator of Peter Carey's uproarious novel, may be the king of them all. Vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch, Badgery is a walking embodiment of the Australian national character - especially of its proclivity for tall stories and barefaced lies. As Carey follows this charming scoundrel across a continent and a century, he creates a crazy quilt of outlandish encounters, with characters that include a genteel dowager who fends off madness with an electric belt and a ravishing young girl with a dangerous fondness for rooftop trysts. Boldly inventive, irresistibly odd, Illywhacker is further proof that Peter Carey is one of the most enchanting writers at work in any hemisphere. "Illywhacker is such an astonishing novel, of such major proportions, that before saying anything else, one must record gratitude for its existence." - Geoffrey Dutton, Bulletin "Awesome breadth, ambition and downright narrative joy... Illywhacker is a triumph." - Curt Suplee, Washington Post "It is impossible to convey in a review the cumulative brilliance and accelerating hilarity of the prose." - Nicholas Spice, London Review of Books. "The finest and funniest picaresque novel yet written in Australia." - Peter Pierce, National Times Winner of Age book of the Year Award NBC Award for Australian Literature Victorian Premier's Award FAW Barbara Ramsden Award. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
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- PublisherVintage
- ISBN 10 174166022X
- ISBN 13 9781741660227
- BindingMass Market Paperback
- Rating
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