Books
Author Peter Carey is the real deal when it comes to taking literary chances

By Mary Ann Gwinn
Seattle Times book editor

	Peter Carey
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Peter Carey has twice been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the most prized award in English literature short of the Nobel. But last week in Seattle, the author of "True History of the Kelly Gang" and "Oscar and Lucinda" looked like a man who might trade a literary decoration or two for a good night's rest, or least a roomier seat on the plane.

"I've been touring since May," he said, to promote his new novel, "My Life as a Fake" (Knopf, $24). Just published in this country, the book was first released in his native Australia and in England. Carey has been touring, reading and sparring with critics in at least three countries.

Wearing a trim black suit that somehow brought to mind actor Ralph Fiennes as the obsessed preacher in the film version of "Oscar and Lucinda," Carey perched atop a bar stool and gamely fielded questions on how he creates his fictional world. It's a landscape brilliantly inhabited with larger-than-life characters and loopily digressive plots, spiced with his acerbic take on the flaws in the Australian character.

"My Life as a Fake" is based on an event in Australian history — a literary hoax perpetrated in the 1940s involving a fictional poet and made-up poetry. It ruined its victim. Carey's novel brings the fictional poet, Bob McCorkle, to Frankenstein-like life, as McCorkle becomes eerily alive and haunts his creator.

Carey lives in New York now, but he remains preoccupied with Australia — contrasting himself with one of his "posh" English characters, he calls himself an "Australian guttersnipe." Here's an abbreviated version of his ruminations on Australian history, fiction and the creative process:

Q: Talk about the hoax that forms the basis for "My Life as a Fake."

A: In 1944, these two politically right-wing Australian poets became noisily concerned about the decay of meaning in modern verse and concocted this poetry — taking, among other things, passages from mosquito eradication manuals. (To submit the poems) these guys concocted these letters from the imaginary sister of the poet, prim, groveling (here Carey affects a nasal, working-class Australian accent): "Dear Mr.Harris — my brother recently died... "

Max Harris (editor of the literary magazine "Angry Penguins," that published the slightly racy poems), fell for them, of course. He was prosecuted for obscenity in Adelaide. He had given a bad review to an actress from the Adelaide establishment, but I believe that anti-Semitism (Harris was Jewish) was the dominant thing. I grew up in a small town, my father was a General Motors dealer. But I went to a fancy school. The school was the first place I ever encountered anti-Semitism. I can't believe anti-Semitism wasn't an issue.

The poetry of the hoaxers isn't studied anymore. But the poetry of the fictional poet, Ern Malley, is anthologized. The work of his creators is not.

Q: Did the real victim commit suicide?

A: No — he ended up being a kind of buffoon. He became a newspaper columnist. He ran a bookstore for many years. I have a friend in his 90s who knew Harris. Harris told him: "I've just been made as big a fool as anyone could ever be made of — I'm never going to be made a fool of again."

Q: Why hang a novel on this tale?

A: It wasn't so much hanging a novel as something moved me, that "I've just been made a fool of" statement. Very early I was emotionally invested in the idea of Ern Malley. I thought — this should be a novel — in effect, the man has come to life.

Q: Your novels embrace audacious techniques and ideas — speaking in the voice of a 19th-century Australian outlaw ("True History of the Kelly Gang"), re-creating a Dickens character (Magwich in "Jack Maggs") and giving him a more Australian point of view. How do you take these risks?

A: To be doing something you don't know how to do is challenging and interesting, but it's terrifying. You're ready for failure. You experience failure. The book really only comes alive when it's read. What people say when they read it matters to me. Only by taking risks can I be engaged ... "Oh, my God, I'm messing with Dickens." I like the stimulation of risk, I like being audacious, but I also spend a lot of time worrying about the consequences.

Q: Much of "My Life as a Fake" is set in Malaysia. What are your impressions of that country?

A: I tried to get an advertising job in Kuala Lumpur back in 1972. I sort of fell in love with it then. Then I went back again, after 9-11; people in New York said, "Why would you go there?" I'm not brave, but going there helped so much. I loved it so much.

I went around with a Chinese/Malay writer, talking about things, buying books. After I finished (the manuscript) I had very specific questions — marked with highlighter, where I knew I was lying, or needed more information. These Chinese guys would tell me — you can't have a piano in a brothel. I said, why not? ... Well, can you have a cabaret in a brothel? Oh, they said, absolutely. An aging cabaret singer drew me a floor plan of the Green Parrot (a real-life nightclub that becomes the True Parrot in the book).

I would ask things like, what kind of school would you have here? If you live in Panang, you'll be glad someone took the trouble. And the book got so much better.

Q: Why were people so helpful to you?

A: People are basically generous. They learned that I had published some books, but in the beginning it wasn't that. Are they doing it because they're being nice to some famous writer? Maybe some of the big city people are, but a lot of them were not like that.

Q: Do you ever plan to move back to Australia?

A: Yes, I do — but I have what is nicely called a broken marriage, and two children who are New Yorkers. Life's complicated.

Q: What's your next project, or are you a writer who avoids talking about that?

A One of the things you learn as a writer — you can kill a novel in a pub. You tell someone, and you see the look on their face ... still, I do it from time totime.

Mary Ann Gwinn: 206-464-2357 or mgwinn@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company