A Long Way from Home

December 4, 2017
Carey’s unfortunate latest (after Amnesia) starts out being about a race and ends up being about race, but it’s marred by so many “what’s going on here?” moments and convenient plot-changing contrivances that readers will wonder what story Carey’s trying to tell, and how. In postwar Australia, car salesman Titch Bobs decides to enter the Redex Trial, a grueling endurance car race around Australia, with the goal of winning and using the ensuing celebrity to open his own dealership. His crew: his wife (and driver) Irene, and his neighbor (and navigator), quiz show champion Willie Bachhuber. Carey takes a lot of time setting up his narrative chess pieces, and it’s not long after the race starts (over a third of a way into the novel) that a family tragedy breaks up Titch’s crew and eventually sends one of them on a baffling adventure that unearths a life-changing secret and lays bare the shameful history of indignities perpetrated against Aboriginal people. Carey’s prose is cutting and often quite funny (“On the far shore stood a moustached white man who should have been told, years ago, don’t wear shorts.”), but that alone doesn’t save the overly shaggy story. This won’t go down as one of Carey’s better efforts.

Starred review from December 15, 2017
This picaresque comedy goes thematically deeper as it heads into the Outback.The antic tone of this 14th novel by Australian-born Carey (Amnesia, 2015, etc.) belies its serious ambition. The comic spirit slyly suggests Shakespeare, an inquiry into identity and the farcical human existence. Chapters alternate through much of the novel between two narrators. The first is Irene Bobs, a tiny woman married to the equally diminutive Titch, though the accomplishments of both will loom large as the novel progresses. He is the best car salesman in their part of Australia. She is a demon driver, as she'll show during the grueling Redex Trial, a contest of automobiles circling the continent that is intended to demonstrate their endurance rather than sheer speed. The second narrator is their taller neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, a teacher (or "a chalk-and-talker" in the novel's parlance) and a minor celebrity as a game-show whiz. Willie is as reflective and remorseful as Irene is impulsive and resilient; even though the chapters never identify who is speaking, the difference in voice and perspective is evident. In order to launch his dealership, Titch places a big gamble on entering the Redex Trial, with Irene as driver (though she'll never be given credit, as a woman in the 1950s) and Willie as navigator. Irene is skeptical over the prospect of "two hundred lunatics circumnavigating the continent of Australia, more than ten thousand miles over outback roads so rough they might crack your chassis clean in half." But off they go! And off goes the novel in some surprising directions at which the setup barely hints, as it illuminates a country very different from the "monocultural" one upon which the government insists, discovers that racial identity may not be as simple as black and white, and upends the relationships between the married couple and their neighbor and the very notion of who is the novel's protagonist and who is the sidekick.In the guise of a period piece, Carey's novel raises issues of culture and race that carry a thoroughly contemporary charge.

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November 15, 2017
With an exceptional economy of style, Carey (The Chemistry of Tears, 2012), a rare two-time Man Booker Prize winner, returns to his homeland, Australia, in 1954 and swiftly immerses readers in the world of Irene Bobs, happiest behind the wheel, and her car salesman husband, Titch, as they attempt to start a new business and home in Bacchus Marsh, in Southeast Australia. In this freeze-frame introduction, Irene, Titch, and their two children appear to be a perfect family. The novel then switches between the perspectives of Irene and her neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, a bookish schoolteacher, as Irene and Titch enter the grueling Redex Trial, a 10,000-mile race in which, with Willie as their navigator, they circumnavigate inhospitable Australia. As Carey guides readers across this vast, often barren landscape and into each character's complicated personal history, he further delves into his career-long fascination with the dark underbelly of Australian history. Carey is a giant of contemporary fiction, and with this powerful, pertinent exploration of race and national identity, the importance and resonance of his work is freshly and enjoyably affirmed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 1, 2017

One of Australia's greatest authors, two-time Booker Prize winner Carey (Oscar and Lucinda; True History of the Kelly Gang) has drawn inspiration from his native country throughout his career, weaving historical and fantastical tales ranging from the 1942 Battle of Brisbane to transporting a glass church from Sydney to Bellingen. Here, he uses the famous Redex Trial, a cross-country car race, to probe the unfurling legacy of colonialism in 1950s Australia. Desperate to acquire his own dealership, Titch Bobs sees both fame and financial windfall in winning the Redex Trial. With wife Irene as his copilot and neighbor Willie as navigator, he sets off across Australia's unfinished roads and rural landscape. While Titch remains intensely focused on winning the race, Irene and Willie uncover painful personal histories along the way that intertwine with Australia's forgotten people and communities. VERDICT Carey employs both a multivoice narrative and a continent-spanning car race to emulate the disparate voices and fits and starts that comprise Australia's history. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 8/14/17.]--Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017

One of Australia's greatest authors, two-time Booker Prize winner Carey (Oscar and Lucinda; True History of the Kelly Gang) has drawn inspiration from his native country throughout his career, weaving historical and fantastical tales ranging from the 1942 Battle of Brisbane to transporting a glass church from Sydney to Bellingen. Here, he uses the famous Redex Trial, a cross-country car race, to probe the unfurling legacy of colonialism in 1950s Australia. Desperate to acquire his own dealership, Titch Bobs sees both fame and financial windfall in winning the Redex Trial. With wife Irene as his copilot and neighbor Willie as navigator, he sets off across Australia's unfinished roads and rural landscape. While Titch remains intensely focused on winning the race, Irene and Willie uncover painful personal histories along the way that intertwine with Australia's forgotten people and communities. VERDICT Carey employs both a multivoice narrative and a continent-spanning car race to emulate the disparate voices and fits and starts that comprise Australia's history. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 8/14/17.]--Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2017

Two-time Booker Award winner Carey takes us on the 1954 running of the Redex Trial, a rough-and-tough 10,000-mile car race around Australia, with freewheeling Irene Bobs, who loves to drive fast; her brilliant car salesman husband, Titch; and navigator Willie Bachhuber. This being Carey, it's not just of cars flashing by; expect a larger sense of race and class in an Australia that's sorting out its future. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.