Illywhacker

Description

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.

Peter Carey is the multi-award-winning author of eight novels, plus two highly acclaimed collections of short stories and a memoir, WRONG ABOUT JAPAN. His books have won or been short-listed for every major literary award in Australia. He has won the Booker Prize twice - in 2001 for TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG and in 1988 for OSCAR AND LUCINDA. In 1998 he won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for JACK MAGGS, and again in 2001 for TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG. In 2007 he won the NSW Premier s Award and the Victorian Premier s Award for THEFT- A LOVE STORY. Born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Peter Carey now lives in New York.