Illywhacker

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.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 04/30/1996
ISBN: 9780679767909
Pages: 608
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.03h x 5.26w x 1.14d

Review Citations: New York Times 11/10/1996 pg. 68
Publishers Weekly 04/01/1996