Bliss (novel)

Bliss
2000 Reprint (Australia)
Author	Peter Carey
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publisher	UQP (Australia) Faber & Faber (UK) Harper & Row (US)
Publication date	1981
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	336 (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	0-571-11769-4 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC	8075118
Followed by	Illywhacker

Bliss is the first novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. Published in 1981, the book won that year's Miles Franklin Award.^[1]

Plot

Written as a dark, comic fable, the story concerns an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he has previously drifted amiably through is in fact Hell – literally so to Harry. His wife is unfaithful, while his son is selling drugs, and his daughter is a communist selling herself to buy them. In one of the novel's more shocking scenes, glimpsed through a window, incest occurs.

Redemption comes in the form of Honey Barbara – a pantheist, healer and prostitute. In the words of the book's blurb "Honey is to Harry as Isis is to Osiris. Together they conquer Hell and retire to the forest where their children inherit the legend of paradise regained." But Harry must die for a second time to be truly saved.

Adaptations

In 1985 Bliss was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Ray Lawrence and starring Barry Otto.^[2]

Commissioned by Opera Australia, Brett Dean and Amanda Holden wrote an opera of the same name, which premiered in March 2010 at the Sydney Opera House, directed by Neil Armfield, conducted by Elgar Howarth, and featuring Peter Coleman-Wright as Harry Joy.

Awards and nominations

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Fiction, 1982: winner
National Book Council Award for Australian Literature, 1982: second
Miles Franklin Award, 1981: winner

References

External links

Bliss Libraries Australia Authorities record.
Mark Roberts review of Bliss from Going Down Swinging Magazine 1982

Works by Peter Carey
Novels	Bliss (1981) Illywhacker (1985) Oscar and Lucinda (1988) The Tax Inspector (1991) The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994) Jack Maggs (1997) True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) My Life as a Fake (2003) Theft: A Love Story (2006) His Illegal Self (2008) Parrot and Olivier in America (2010) The Chemistry of Tears (2012) Amnesia (2014)
Short story collections	The Fat Man in History (1974) War Crimes (1979) The Fat Man in History and Other Stories (1980) Exotic Pleasures (1990) Collected Stories (1994)
Juvenile fiction	The Big Bazoohley (1995)
Non-fiction	A Letter to Our Son (1994) 30 Days in Sydney (2001) Letter from New York (2001) Wrong about Japan (2004)
Screenplays	Bliss (1985) Until the End of the World (1991)

Awards and achievements
Preceded by The Impersonators	Miles Franklin Award recipient 1981	Succeeded by Just Relations

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