True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel [Paperback]

Peter Carey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 4, 2001

“I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.”

In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"What is it about we Australians, eh?" demands a schoolteacher near the end of Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. "Do we not have a Jefferson? A Disraeli? Might not we find someone better to admire than a horse-thief and a murderer?" It's the author's sole nod to the contradictory feelings Ned Kelly continues to evoke today, more than a century after his death. A psychopathic killer to some, a crusading folk hero to others, Kelly was a sharpshooting outlaw who eluded a brutal police manhunt for nearly two years. For better or worse, he's now a part of the Australian national myth. Indeed, the opening ceremonies for the Sydney Olympics featured an army of Ned Kellys dancing about to Irish music, which puts him in the symbolic company of both kangaroos and Olivia Newton-John.

What's to be gained from telling this illiterate bushranger's story yet again? Quite a lot, as it turns out. For starters, there is the remarkable vernacular poetry of Carey's narrative voice. Fierce, funny, ungrammatical, steeped in Irish legends and the frontier's moral code, this voice is the novel's great achievement--and perhaps the greatest in Carey's distinguished career. It paints a vivid picture of an Australia where English landowners skim off the country's best territory while government land grants allow the settlers just enough acreage to starve. Cheated, lied to, and persecuted by the authorities at every opportunity, young Kelly retains no faith in his colonial masters. What he does trust, oddly, is the power of words:

And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood and a man might be a bank clerk or an overseer he might never have been lagged for nothing but still he knew in his heart what it were to be forced to wear the white hood in prison he knew what it were to be lashed for looking a warder in the eye ... so the knowledge of unfairness were deep in his bone and in his marrow.

Ned Kelly as literary hero? Strangely enough, that's what he becomes, at least in Carey's rendering. Pouring his heart out in a series of letters to the country at large, Kelly wants nothing more than to be heard--and for the dirt-poor son of an Irish convict, that's an audacious ambition indeed. It's not so surprising, then, that his story continues to speak to Australians. Like all colonial countries, Australia was built at a steep human price, and the memory of all those silenced voices lives on. True History of the Kelly Gang takes its epigraph from Faulkner: "The past is not dead. It is not even past." And like Faulkner's own vast chronicle of dispossession, it's haunted by tragedies as large as history itself. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Every Australian grows up hearing the legend of outlaw Ned Kelly, whose exploits are memorialized in the old Melbourne Gaol, where he and his comrades were imprisoned before their execution in 1880. Carey's inspired "history" of Kelly from his destitute youth until his death at age 26 is as genuine as a diamond in the rough. No reader will be left unmoved by this dramatic tale of an instinctively good-hearted young man whose destiny, in Carey's revisionist point of view, was determined by heredity on one side and official bigotry and corruption on the other; whose criminal deeds were motivated by gallantry and desperation; and whose exploits in eluding the police for almost two years transfixed a nation and made him a popular hero. The unschooled Kelly narrates through a series of letters he writes to the baby daughter he will never see. Conveyed in run-on sentences, with sparse punctuation and quirky grammar enriched by pungent vernacular and the polite use of euphemisms for what Kelly calls "rough expressions" ("It were eff this and ess that"; "It were too adjectival hot"), Kelly's voice is mesmerizing as he relates the events that earned him a reputation as a horse thief and murderer. Through Ned's laconic observations, Carey creates a textured picture of Australian society when the British ruling class despised the Irish, and both the police and the justice system were thoroughly corrupt. Harassed, slandered, provoked and jailed with impunity, the Kellys, led by indomitable, amoral matriarch Ellen, believe they have no recourse but to break the law. Ned is initially reluctant; throughout his life, his criminal activities are an attempt to win his mother's love and approval. Ellen is a monster of selfishness and treachery. She betrays her son time and again, yet he adores her with Irish sentimentality and forfeits his chance to escape the country by pledging to surrender if the authorities will release her from jail. This is in essence an adventure saga, with numerous descriptions of the wild and forbidding Australian landscape, shocking surprises, coldhearted villains who hail from the top and the bottom of the social ladder and a tender love story. Carey (Booker Prize-winner Oscar and Lucinda) deserves to be lionized in his native land for this triumphant historical recreation, and he will undoubtedly win a worldwide readership for a novel that teems with energy, suspense and the true story of a memorable protagonist. 75,000 first printing. (Jan. 16)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; a edition (December 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375724672
• ISBN-13: 978-0375724671
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5.3 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Something Worth Reading about Ned Kelly January 11, 2001

By "jaui"

Format:Hardcover

After studying in Melbourne, Australia for about 4 years, I had fallen across texts and historical accounts on the famous Australian bushranger Ned Kelly. Most of the time, they were quite bland and very vague - what they stressed most was that Ned Kelly was someone who was a mystery, a folk tale.

Another book that has dealt with trying to get into the real character of Ned Kelly was Our Sunshine. I feel that "True History of the Kelly Gang" gives us a more in depth feel into one view of what the true Ned Kelly was like. The characters in the book comes alive and at times, you forget that this was not written by Carey but by Ned himself (which is what Carey wants the reader to do). The grammatical errors and the lack of punctuation did become confusing at times but, trust me, you get used to it and it also makes the story come alive and makes it very, very believable. It is almost like the new phase of Reality TV but better.

The book deals with all the events that Ned Kelly went through and Carey weaves all these events with Kelly's personal life and an example of what he might have felt during different stages of his life. The layout of the "project" is given to the reader in a package form from his younger days to his early death. It is extremely detailed and it is obvious that a lot of painstaking research was poured into the book and it is evident that Carey actually became the Ned that he was painting in his mind.

This is a book that has everything - murder, love, family, loyalty, betrayal, action and most of all, it is able to draw the reader into the situation to feel what all the characters are feeling. It forces the reader to think about whether Kelly was in the right or in the wrong and it creates debate between knowledge that we all might have past before about this character.

It is hard for someone who had never heard of the Kelly story before to really get into this book and to truly appreciate it, some history has to be studied. This is what makes the book fascinating as it is remarkable to see how Carey has weaved the events to make it feel like a flowing river of events. Basically, these parcels/manuscripts that have been written are from Ned Kelly himself to his daughter so as to give evidence that he is not the man the newspapers portray him as. It is a touching and very emotional account of a man that has been wronged for most of his life. But we also have to pause and think whether what all he is saying is true or what he wants to be true.

As a teenager, I recommend it to all age groups (I mean, if it passes for teenagers, it should be able to pass for everyone) as it can be read on many levels - as a story or as a trip into real history.

This book serves its purpose of bringing Ned Kelly to life and I salute and thank Peter Carey for doing that for me.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Australian Novel. February 26, 2001

By J. GRAHAM

Format:Hardcover

This is one of the few great "factional" works of literature. Most attempts in making novels of real life people tend to fail. Exceptions are Mailer's The Executioner's Song and Capote's In Cold Blood. Along with Kelly the central characters of these stories met their fate in the same way - executed by the state. And now in Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang we learn of Ned's inevitable march to the gallows. Through these tales we may understand what motivates society's criminals. In bringing Ned back to life Peter Carey has done this brilliantly.

In the True History Carey has looked anew at a timeless story. One which is just as relevant today. How much is one's environment responsible for the illegal actions of an otherwise decent man. Yet, despite all his disadvantages, Ned Kelly emerges as a man of much depth, compassion and intelligence. Ned cared much for his fellow Irish-Australians and the other dispossessed choking under the English yoke in the colony of Victoria in the nineteenth century.

What'smore I loved how Carey has truly captured Ned's voice. A voice that shows a lack of education but a great depth of insight and understanding of his times. And what exciting times they were.

A great book by a writer who has now reached the height of his powers. If one wants to understand what, hopefully, lies at the heart of the Australian character then this is, as Ned's mother would say, the effing book.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Adjectival Wonder January 20, 2001

By Keith D. Gumery

Format:Hardcover

History has always been written by the victors of wars, those adhering to the prevailing ideology of the day, or the survivors. In Peter Carey's new novel, the best this wonderful writer has yet produced, history gets told by Ned Kelly, the mythic Australian bush-ranger, who is none of those things. The result, Carey tells us, is a "true" history, told in the first-person voice of Kelly, a voice of Faulknerian sweep and rhythm written in a style based on real surviving letters in Kelly's own hand. And what a voice it is. Sentences run on, they lack punctuation or accurate grammar, they fold into themselves, or whip from emotion to emotion, subject to subject. Yet Carey is always in control of the sentence, using it to charm, inform,and manipulate.

The precise nature of Ned Kelly's lawlessness is central to Carey's book, for most of Kelly's crimes are seen as reactions against a cruel and unjust system being enacted against immigrants by the predominantly British system in Australia. For example, when Kelly is accused of stealing another horse, but when the case comes to trial the dates do not match up, the accused being out of the area when the theft was alleged to have taken place. The result of the trial is still a conviction. Kelly is found "guilty of receiving a horse not yet legally stolen." Finally, when Ned Kelly and his three companions are being hunted for the attempted murder of a policeman-something Kelly denies in his history-there is a shootout at Stringybark Creek resulting in the deaths of three constables. Kelly realizes that the only way to discourage the locals from turning them in is to pay them more than the reward money being offered by the authorities. After some audacious bank robberies to raise such funds the Kelly gang are cornered in Mrs. Jones' hotel in Glenrowan. Three are killed and Kelly is captured in his newly created(and now iconic) suit of armor. In 1880 he was tried and hanged. Kelly is a victim, like Jack Maggs in Carey's last novel, of a system that pulls him into a life of crime and judicial punishment. As Maggs is apprenticed to a house-breaker in Victorian London, so Kelly is apprenticed to a bush-ranger in this novel. They struggle, feeling that they can escape their lot in life, but the system pulls them down. Both men explain themselves--Maggs in the invisible writing he leaves for his errant adopted son, and Kelly in his "true history."

Carey's epigram in this book is taken from William Faulkner: "The past is not dead. It is not even past." This is his theme, for Carey is examining what it meant to be Australian in the last century and, by association, what it means today. Is it any different? Australia is still under the sovereign rule of Britain, the Republic still not realized. Carey's focus on post-colonialism and the struggle for Australian identity has clarified with every novel he has written, and it has never been clearer than here. The past is not dead, but it continues. Australia is still not free today, just as it was not free in Kelly's time. The sense of injustice in this book, and in this situation is prevalent.

But do not think this an overly serious or difficult book, because Carey has always been a wonderful story-teller and entertainer. There is abundant action and humor in this novel, and it comes at a great pace. The description of the Australian outback is vivid and sensual, bringing to life the harsh beauty of the country, the loud blackness of the bush night, and the roaring life of rivers in flood. Even the explanations of Kelly's difficult situation are couched in native terms that ring with truth and beauty. For example, when Kelly confesses that he can't imagine the forces stirred against him, he describes himself as "a plump witchetty grub beneath the bark not knowing that the kookaburra exists unable to imagine that fierce beak or the punishment in that wild and angry eye." Throughout the telling the voice of Kelly is dominant, Carey disappearing masterfully behind his narrator. Detail is immaculately and consistently observed. Kelly is obsessed it seems with numbers, for example. He gives ages and dimensions meticulously. Also, and effectively given the violence of the story and the reputation of Kelly himself, there is a winning sense of decorum in Kelly's refusal to report strong language. Instead we get b----r, and b----y, and most notably the replacement of all other swear words with the cover-all term "adjectival." Each chapter is a "found" document, Kelly's writings being made on any available paper stock tell his story, and pulled together after his capture and execution. Kelly's civil disobedience, while often violent in nature, is grounded in an sense of moral injustice that breeds a sturdy stoicism. Kelly is the hero we identify with and the forces of imperialism and societal intolerance that we read of in this book are the historical factors that forced him into being, in all his conflicted fatalism. In the "true" history of the Kelly gang it is made clear that this past is not dead but still with us. If Carey's novel is particularly Australian, his theme is universal.