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Even though I found it inexplicable at times, if I let the writing wash over me, hang on and stay the ride, I discovered that I experienced an understanding at a much more elemental and emotional level rather than a logical intellectual one. This is Carey's genius; he is able to elicit this reaction in the reader. His ability to evoke the feel of the outback from the ever-present enveloping dust in the dry to the unrelenting mud in the wet probably had a lot to do with it. I can see what the author was trying to do, and I can say I liked it; however, I think the narrative loses steam when the plot shifts so dramatically. I suggest reading it as representative of Australia’s colonial past, but I am not sure this is going to work well for readers interested in the Redex.
Additional features include a listing of headwords, a Carey history, 44 reading and writing topics, and bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. There is certainly an autobiographical element in the book as Carey grew up in Bacchus Marsh and his parents ran a General Motors Holden dealership. Carey also ventures into indigenous stories and characters for the first time in his writing career. On the Redex trial a massacre site is discovered and a child’s skull is brought into a police station where the local cop labels it ‘Abo infant skull found near xxx’.
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Interspersed with details of the Redex, which is a pretty boring race, we get random information about the lives of Willie and the Bobs , Willie's nazi brother, quiz shows, and the history of Australia. The most interesting part of the book to me is the last part which is devoted to the period after Willie leaves the race. He reluctantly gets another teaching position educating the children of Aborigines workers. "They paid me twenty pounds a week to erase the past, to modernise the blacks, to make them as white as possible in the hope that they would grow up as stockboys and house lubras and punks wallahs." It turns out that Willie is the one getting the education. The dialect used occasionally in this part of the book was too much work for me to follow.
My only criticism is with the last part of the novel where Carey concentrates on Willie and Irene becomes something of a footnote, and the ending feels rushed…almost like a final sprint to a finish line. Set in Australia in 1953 and ‘54, the novel is narrated with alternating points of view between Irene Bobs, a modern wife and mother, and her quiz show prize-winning, next door neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, who possesses many secrets – some that he doesn’t even realize. Irene loves her husband Titch dearly, and as a team they endeavor to open a car dealership AND drive the famous Redex Trial, an actual race around Australia with its often harsh terrain. Irene isn't particularly good with a map, but Titch discovers that Willie is, and swiftly signs him on as navigator.
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As we know from his earliest novels, Carey is a genius at quirky characterisation, and Willie Bachhuber is one of his best. Willie is a schoolteacher with a past and present that are equally troubled. To evade paying maintenance for a child he thinks is the fruit of his wife’s adultery, he has fled from his hasty marriage and his own estranged parent, and is batching next door to Irene and Titch in Bacchus Marsh. A mild-mannered man who participates in a weekly radio quiz show , Willie lives an otherwise quiet life with his books and his chooks until (gosh!) he is suspended from his job for hanging an obnoxious student out of a second-storey window.
His vast knowledge and thorough research really bring the text alive, and also show his sympathy and respect for what so many aborigines have and do endure in what remains one of the most unforgiving and intolerant corners of the English speaking world. Overall, despite being somewhat disjointed, this was an engaging read, which introduced me to a chunk of history and culture of which I was largely unaware. Character is everything in Peter Carey's twisty new novel, "A Long Way From Home", and we are treated to some unique character types; from real jerks, to humorous caricatures, to deeply moving “real” people. This novel — his 14th — is based very much on the Redex Trial and focuses on a trio of eccentric characters that enter the event, before it morphs into an intriguing exploration of a different kind of race — that of white Australia’s crimes against its indigenous population. An absorbing, fearless probing of the 1950s Australian psyche when whitefella post-war optimism ruled and the secrets of the country's dark heart were yet to be openly acknowledged. The unfolding of the novel's central core is masterful - if this doesn't want to make you go back and revisit the entire Carey canon, nothing will.
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This is a book of three distinct sections, which at times can feel like three different books, albeit with a reasonably clear sense of where the author is steering the book. I sometimes get impatient with Carey’s writing, and I don’t know exactly why. The chapters rotate between Titch, Irene and Willie, mostly, and it isn’t always obvious at first who’se speaking, which I find annoying.
Women were expected to conform to a domestic role, and Australia’s Black History was decades away from being being acknowledged. Australia’s enduring love affair with the motor car was taking off because ordinary people could afford to buy one, and the branding of cars was beginning to be linked to male identity. Set in the early 1950s in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, the main characters are Irene and Titch Bobs, a happily married couple who want to be Ford dealers and set up their own car yard but Holden has recently emerged and is challenging Ford for supremacy. Irene and Titch decide to go on the Redex trial, a type of car rally that circumnavigated Australia and was quite popular at that time.
It is however long enough to know that the style and delivery of the story is not for you. This section ends with Titch, on the verge of a Holden dealership entering the Redex Reliability motor rallying trials around Australia, with Titch as co-driver and Willie as navigator. This story takes place in the 1950s, and the Redex was a popular event followed by all car enthusiasts as we waited to hear what Gelignite Jack Murray had blown up each day (to clear the track with “jelly”, of course). Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Most interesting is how the novel veers off into the history of Australia’s atrocious treatment of the aborigines by the white immigrants, carrying with it deep questions of identity. That Carey is able to tell this particular story with such a large dollop of humor is what makes him such an acclaimed writer. This story would make a fantastic and beautiful film.
Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. The mood and feel of this book put me very much in mind of Facey’s outstanding, “A Fortunate Life”, and “Last Cab To Darwin”, but it still retains many of Carey’s telling hallmarks, from his wry humour to some of the colourful and rich description. A book that captured Australia in the middle of the 20 th century at a time where the outback was remote, Australia was developing its obsession with motor cars, patriarchy was beginning to be tested and most importantly the full impact of the Stolen Generation was being felt. Carey weaves all of these themes meticulously into a plot that is simultaneously entertaining and sensitive.
Together with Willie, their lanky navigator, they embark upon the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. A Long Way from Home is Peter Carey's late style masterpiece; a thrilling high speed story that starts in one way, then takes you to another place altogether. Peter Carey, writer of such celebrated works as Oscar and Lucinda, True History of the Kelly Gang, and His Illegal Self, is one of Australia's most critically acclaimed novelists.
