Peter CAREY ... Theft (2006)

“A critique of both the art business and the business of love, Theft is a funny, gorgeous steal of a book,” said Ali Smith in the Sunday Telegraph. “Peter Carey loves to goad acceptable style, knock it off its perch. As a writer he is in love not just with the place where ‘fakery’ meets ‘reality’ but with the Molotov mix of so-called high and low art; here, he courts everything from Rembrandt to Pollock, obsessed with what doesn’t get to be ‘art’ and why.” Theft has two narrators: Michael ‘Butcher’ Boone, an out-of-fashion artist, and his brother Hugh. Their lives are changed when they meet Marlene Leibovitz, a mysterious art expert. “While the voices of the Boone brothers leap off the page with their originality, there is something a little unremitting about the two-handed narrative,” said Sophie Ratcliffe in the Times. “It certainly leaves Marlene out in the cold. Seen, as she is, through the brothers’ eyes, the house-breaking, Manolo-wearing, small-town-Sheila-made-good is a tissue of male fantasy - the Lara Croft of modern art dealing.” Extracted from The Guardian of May 27, 2006

Bibliography
CAREY Peter [1943-] Australian novelist, short-story writer. Born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia. Novels Theft: A Love Story (2006: winner of the 2006 Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction); My Life as a Fake (2003: shortlisted for the 2004 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the 2004 Kiriyama Prize for Fiction); True History of the Kelly Gang (2000: winner of the 2001 Booker Prize for Fiction, the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the 2001 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction; shortlisted for the 2001 Miles Franklin Award); Jack Maggs (1997: winner of the 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1998 Miles Franklin Award and The Age Book of the Year Award); The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994: winner of The Age Book of the Year Award); The Tax Inspector (1991); Oscar and Lucinda (1988: winner of the 1988 Booker Prize for Fiction and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award); Illywhacker (1985: shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize for Fiction and The Age Book of the Year Award); Bliss (1981: winner of the 1981 Miles Franklin Award) Stories Collected Stories (1994); Exotic Pleasures (1990); The Fat Man in History and Other Stories (1980: also published in 1981 as Exotic Pleasures); War Crimes (1979) Nonfiction A Letter to Our Son (1994) Travel/Memoir Wrong About Japan: A Father’s Journey With His Son (2004); 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account (2001) Children’s The Big Bazoohley (1995)

Recommended
Novels Theft: A Love Story (2006); The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994); Oscar and Lucinda (1988)