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.
Michael Boone, a.k.a. Butcher Bones, is a formerly famous Australian painter of working-class background who has lost all of his art in an acrimonious divorce and now finds himself broke and exiled to a patron's house in the outback. There, he tries to begin painting again while taking care of Hugh, his psychologically damaged brother and alter ego. Into this already tumultuous world stumbles the bright, beautiful, and amoral Marlene, a similarly self-made art authenticator with a tie to the estate of a famous painter. The two begin a love affair that helps Boone restart his career while at the same drawing him ever deeper into the more nefarious aspects of the art world. Theft is the overarching metaphor of the novel, covering everything from aspects of the artistic process, to the relationship between artists and collectors, to the art world generally, and it's a metaphor that Carey (Oscar and Lucinda) likely intends to extend into the world at large. Sharply observed, well written, and acerbically witty, this book will only further Carey's reputation. Recommended for all public libraries.-Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Vance splits the difference between Cockney and Aussie in his reading of Carey's tale of art and family. At times, he sounds significantly like Michael Caine in his broad working-class tones, elongating his vowels in an English version of a Southern drawl. For other characters, the Australian in Vance wins out, likely reminding American listeners of Crocodile Dundee or the narrator in those Foster's beer commercials. Vance pulls off both styles admirably in reading Carey's book about two brothers, one a painter and the other a childlike innocent, who are drawn into stealing paintings belonging to the father-in-law of a beautiful stranger. Vance does a credible job of echoing the half-tempo cadences of the impaired Slow Bones, bringing the hurtling pace of his reading to a relative halt each time he wrestles with his dialogue, imitating Slow Bones's thick-tongued efforts to translate thought into speech. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 20). (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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