Illywhacker

Authors: Carey, Peter
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
BISAC/Subject: FIC019000
ISBN: 9780307764256, Related ISBNs: 0307764257, 0679767908, 9780307764256, 9780679767909
Classification: Fiction
Number of pages: 608,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis: In Australian slang, an illywhacker is a country fair con man, an unprincipled seller of fake diamonds and dubious tonics. And Herbert Badgery, the 139-year-old narrator of Peter Carey's uproarious novel, may be the king of them all. Vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch, Badgery is a walking embodiment of the Australian national character—espcially of its proclivity for tall stories and barefaced lies.

As Carey follows this charming scoundrel across a continent and a century, he creates a crazy quilt of outlandish encounters, with characters that include a genteel dowager who fends off madness with an electric belt and a ravishing young girl with a dangerous fondness for rooftop trysts. Boldly inventive, irresistibly odd, Illywhacker is further proof that Peter Carey is one of the most enchanting writers at work in any hemisphere.
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