True History of the Kelly Gang

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Title True History of the Kelly Gang

Author	Peter Carey
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre(s)	crime fiction
Publisher	University of Queensland Press
Released	2000
Media type	Print (Hardcover and paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-7022-3236-X

True History of the Kelly Gang is a crime fiction novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It won the 2001 Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the same year. Despite its title, the book is essentially a fictional variation on the Ned Kelly story.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel is presented as having been hastily written on scraps of paper by Ned Kelly himself, and it expands on the story told in the real life Jerilderie Letter. Carey departs from what is known about Kelly's life by providing him with a lover and a daughter, for whom he has been recording his life history whilst on the run from the police.

The novel is written in a distinctive vernacular style, with little in the way of punctuation or grammar. Although there is much profanity in the novel, it has all been censored (save the racist terms) for the benefit of Kelly's fictional daughter.

The book does however remain close to the real chronology of Ned Kelly's life. It captures and expands upon the tone of Kelly's actual writing style demonstrated in his Jerilderie Letter.

[edit] Trivia

• In a curious effort to attract American readers to the story, the book's publisher, Alfred Knopf, heralded the book as a "great American novel", even though it is completely based in Australia and involving Australian characters and events. The claim that this book is an "American novel" appears to be based on the fact that Peter Carey, an Australian, has lived in New York for over a decade.

• This book is one of the few that does not contain any commas.

Preceded by The Blind Assassin

Man Booker Prize recipient 2001

Succeeded by Life of Pi