Peter Carey is someone I think of as an author of my youth. I read
True History of the Kelly Gang and
Oscar and Lucinda some 20 years ago. In my memory, I read the former after the latter but my records indicate otherwise. I remember I had gotten an ARC of
True History of the Kelly Gang and it seems I read it before it was released. In any case, I read them within the space of a year in 2001-2002 and I loved them both. The end of
Oscar and Lucinda left me in tears and unable to sleep the night I finished it. Some time later, I started
The Tax Inspector but I had to stop because I was afraid things were taking a bad turn and I couldn't handle it. (I seem to recall that the edition I had bore a quote from a reviewer that said simply "Devastating." or something along those lines, and I thought it boded poorly for my mental health.) A few years later, I read
The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith and I didn't much like it, and there, for a long time, ended my reading of Peter Carey, though I have held on to several of his books. I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to pick him up again now. A week ago I was looking for a book to read and I had some rather particular qualities in mind. I was leaving soon for a couple weeks away from home, and I wanted something that would be engaging reading for my flight and something I wouldn't mind leaving behind, as I'd packed 5 other books to take on my trip and didn't intend to bring them all back home with me. I had two false starts before I landed on
My Life as a Fake. In the end, I didn't read on the plane at all (I never know if I will or not), but I think I chose an appropriate book for my needs.
My Life as a Fake follows the editor of a small poetry journal who, while visiting Kuala Lumpur, encounters an Australian poet who 30 years earlier pulled off a hoax, tricking the editor of an Australian poetry journal into publishing the avant garde poems of an invented outsider poet bike mechanic. This poet proceeds to tell the editor his life story, which took him from Melbourne to Sydney to Southeast Asia chasing his invented poet who, by his own word, he manifested into a living being. The story of the hoax is well-known in the book (and is based on real events), but the book gives the editor -- and the reader -- reason to believe (or at least some reasons not to disbelieve) the story of the poet tormented by his invention. The man he created turns out to have become a remarkable poet, though we're never quite sure he existed.
