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y separately published work icon His Illegal Self single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 His Illegal Self
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'When the boy was almost eight a woman stepped out of the elevator into the apartment on East 62nd Street and he recognized her straight away. It was the smell his heart knew - patchouli, jasmine, other stuff. .. That was pretty typical of growing up with Grandma Selkirk. No one would dream of saying, here is your mother returned to you. His Illegal Self is the story of Che. Raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, he is the precocious son of radical student activists at Harvard in the late sixties. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents, denied all access to television and the news, he takes hope from his long haired teenage neighbour who predicts, They will come for you, man. They'll break you out of here.

'Soon Che too is an outlaw, fleeing down subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, he is pitched into a journey that leads him to a hippy commune in the jungle of tropical Queensland. Here he slowly, bravely, confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems. Who is his real mother? Was that his real father? If all he suspects is true, what should he do?' (Publisher's blurb)

Notes

  • Dedication: For Bel
  • Included in the New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books List for 2008.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
First published in 2008 in Australia by Random House Australia. Published simultaneously in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf and in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber. (t.p. verso, Milson's Point, 2008)
    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Knopf , 2008 .
      image of person or book cover 8391392851283800967.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 270p.
      Note/s:
      • A Knopf book published by Random House Australia - t.p. verso
      ISBN: 9781741665352
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Knopf ,
      2008 .
      image of person or book cover 8019013287813019381.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 272p.
      Edition info: 1st American ed.
      Note/s:
      • This is a Borzoi Book - t.p. verso.
      ISBN: 9780307263728 (alk. paper)
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Faber ,
      2008 .
      image of person or book cover 7408826016789603121.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 271p.
      Edition info: A special signed limited first edition...of which seventy five copies have been quarter-bound in Brillianta cloth, slip-cased and numbered 1-75, forty copies quarter-bound in Harmatan fine grain leather, slip-cased and numbered I-XL and ten fully bound in the same leather, housed in a solander box and numbered i-x. The bindings have been designed by Andrew Stilwell and the books have been bound, slip-cased and boxed by the Fine Book Bindery, Wellingborough, Northants - frontmatter
      ISBN: 0571231519; 9780571231515 (hbk)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Vintage ,
      2009 .
      image of person or book cover 2659263908559054749.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 10 February 2009.
      ISBN: 9780307276490
      Series: y separately published work icon Vintage International New York (City) : Vintage , 1993- 19532994 1993 series - publisher novel

      'William Faulkner, Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Thomas Mann, Doris Lessing, Albert Camus, V.S. Naipaul, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, and Cormac McCarthy, among many others: Vintage International is devoted to publishing the best writing of the past century from the world over. Offering both classic and modern fiction and literary nonfiction in elegant editions, Vintage International aims to provide readers with world-class writing that has stood the test of time and essential works by the preeminent authors of today.'

      Source: Vintage.

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 8348563311319386338.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3rd March 2020
      ISBN: 9781760896508
Alternative title: Zijn verborgen bestaan
Language: Dutch
    • Amsterdam,
      c
      Netherlands,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      De Bezige Bij ,
      2008 .
      image of person or book cover 6520022621172467914.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 302p.
      ISBN: 9789023428909, 9023428900

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Going Underground on the Sunshine Coast: Peter Carey's His Illegal Self Anthony J. Hassall , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , December vol. 24 no. 2 2017; (p. 242-252)

'Peter Carey has said of his 2008 novel, His Illegal Self, that it grew from an image he recalled of a hippie mother and her son wandering along the edge of the Bruce Highway near Caboolture, and an American who arrived in his commune near Yandina who turned out to be a drug dealer wanted by the FBI. In typical Carey fashion, the three central characters in His Illegal Self are in the process of escaping from the narratives that have been imposed upon them, and metamorphosing into different and better selves. His Illegal Self is the first of Carey's books in which he reverses the angle of vision on the cross-cultural comparison of Australia and America that has engaged him throughout his career. This reverse comparison is set some thirty-five years in the past, against a background of the protest movements against the Vietnam War in both countries. Unlike several of his earlier novels, His Illegal Self lacks a pronounced sense of self-conscious storytelling, and this increases the direct emotional impact of the novel, intensifying the reader's empathy with the characters’ emergence from their imposed identities.'

Cracks in the System : Children in Contemporary Narratives about the 1960s in America Maureen Ryan , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: War, Literature, and the Arts : An International Journal of the Humanities , vol. 25 no. 2013;
On the Genealogy of Democracy : Reading Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Mathews , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 27 no. 2 2012; (p. 68-80)
Wrong About Carey? : Reading Carey in Post-Postmodern Times Andreas Gaile , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Rewriting History : Peter Carey's Fictional Biography of Australia 2010; (p. 285-298)
y separately published work icon Outlaws, Fakes and Monsters : Doubleness, Transgression and the Limits of Fiction Chris Boge , Heidelberg : Winter Verlag , 2009 Z1810236 2009 single work criticism

'Peter Carey is one of the most remarkable writers of our day and age. The characters and narrators that populate his twisted postmodern and postcolonial plot structures are conceived as fakes and tricksters, monstrously distorted creatures and disturbed Antipodeans, struggling for possible meanings of life in the global fringes and beyond. Offering a critical analysis of terms such as liminality and transgression, this comparative study examines the intricate interweaving of faction in True History of the Kelly Gang, follows Christopher Chubb into the entanglements between the gnarled tropical trees of Malaysia and the dark recesses of the storyteller's mind in My Life as a Fake, and joins the Bones Brothers on their journey to Japan and the US in Theft: A Love Story, a book on art, integrity and complicity. Moreover, for the first time in a book-length study, His Illegal Self will be interpreted and placed in the context of ethical criticism and cosmopolitan theory.' (Source: Publisher website).

Contents:

  • Circumferences, Perimeters, Crossings, or, Decoding the Book's Subtitle: An Introduction
  • The Ned Kelly Puzzle: True History of the Kelly Gang and the Commodification of an Enigma
  • Begetting the Monster: My Life as a Fake
  • Between Beauty and Horror: Theft: A Love Story
  • Conclusion, No Conclusion, or, Selves, Societies, Stories: An Outlook
Carey's Radical Diversion Inspires a Tale of the Familiar Seen from Afar Liam Davison , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26-27 January 2008; (p. 8-9)

— Review of His Illegal Self Peter Carey , 2008 single work novel
Swept Away in Skilful Style Mark Thomas , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 26 January 2008; (p. 13)

— Review of His Illegal Self Peter Carey , 2008 single work novel
Children of the Revolution James Ley , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 26 January 2008; (p. 21)

— Review of His Illegal Self Peter Carey , 2008 single work novel
Eye of a Child Lucy Clark , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 3 February 2008; (p. 18)

— Review of His Illegal Self Peter Carey , 2008 single work novel
Child-Like Wonder Katharine England , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 2 February 2008; (p. 12)

— Review of His Illegal Self Peter Carey , 2008 single work novel
Yearning for Home Stefanie Balogh , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 27 - 28 October 2007; (p. 23)
His Illegal Self Stephen Romei , 2007 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , December vol. 2 no. 12 2007; (p. 2)
Home Thoughts from Abroad John Freeman , 2008 single work biography
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26-27 January 2008; (p. 8-9)
True History of Peter Carey Gillian Lord , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 26 January 2008; (p. 11)
His Fictional Self Erica Wagner , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Times , 2 February 2008; (p. 6)
Last amended 23 Jul 2021 13:59:20
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