True History of the Kelly Gang

By: Peter Carey

Narrated by: Gianfranco Negroponte

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2001

Ned Kelly's name resonates in Australia the same way the name Jesse James does in America. Was he a crusading folk hero or murderous horse thief and bank robber? Who was the real Ned Kelly? As the impoverished son of an Irish convict, Kelly was cheated, lied to, and abused by the English. Committed to fighting back against oppression, Kelly and his gang of outlaws eluded police for nearly two years. Brilliantly novelized by Peter Carey, the story of the Kelly Gang unfolds from a series of 13 compassionate letters written, while on the run, by Kelly to his infant daughter. Building from this historical legend and testing our sympathies, Carey crafts a deeply humanistic piece of historical fiction, a tale of injustice and violence.

©2000 Peter Carey (P)2001 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"No reader will be left unmoved by this dramatic tale....A novel that teems with energy, suspense and the true story of a memorable protagonist." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Historical fiction doesn't get much better than this." ( School Library Journal)
"Packed with incident, alive with comedy and pathos...contains pretty much everything you could ask of a novel." ( The New York Times Book Review)

beautiful writing, great story

Peter Carey read a letter that was written by the real 19th century outlaw, Ned Kelly (known as the Jesse James of Australia) and then fashioned an imagined biography from that voice and that time. It is a wonderful story, a wonderful piece of writing.

Interesting narrative

Interesting,and well told, but not as sensationally good as I was expecting from Peter Carey

Adjectively excellent

This is not like any outlaw story I've ever read. It is told from Ned's own lips and a short way in you've forgotten there's a narrator or an author. These are Ned Kelly's own writings, damn it, and told in his own voice.

The story is engaging, taut and utterly authentic. It is peopled with a humanity that oozes with veracity. The good and the bad are hardly imagined in this tale. There is the living and the loves, the family, the life under someone's thumb. And through it all, I felt like I was there and found myself sneering once or twice, 'adjectively.'

Brilliant and Poetic

The True History of the Kelly Gang is, hands down, the best recorded book I have ever heard. Peter Carey is truly a gifted writer whose ear for 19th Century Australian Irish "selector" dialogue is amazing. The reader, Giancarlo Negroponte, is a masterful and talented voice actor. I knew nothing about Ned Kelly before listening to this book and have been inspired to learn more about Australia's national hero. I did not want this book to end and can still hear Ned Kelly's voice in my head. Carey's literary, fictionalized version of the Kelly Gang's story achieves something truly remarkable. It conveys, in the way that only exceptional poetry and prose can, the essence of how the heritage of transportation formed the unique Australian identity and of how Ned Kelly in particular embodied the belief that something good could come of convicts.

A Sad Story Told Well

I got this because I wanted to learn more about the Autstrailian anti-hero, Ned Kelly. The story is sadder than I thought it would be. Ned Kelly and his family certainly have more than their share of bad luck; but I got tired of the Kellys believing that they were always the victims of circumstance and corruption. This story makes it clear that the Kellys and their families were mostly criminals, which is why they were harassed by the police.

The story also makes it clear that there is NOTHING glamorous about being an outlaw.

I really liked the Austrailian narration, but didn't understand a lot of the slang (maybe there is a glossary in the dead tree edition). And it would have been a bit less distracting if the narrator had either used the cuss words, or dropped them, but the "adjectival" frequently interferred with the flow of the narration.