Peter Carey is a writer who’s already known for challenging the line between fact and fiction. In 2001, he won his second Booker prize for “True History of the Kelly Gang,” a novel about a real life Australian outlaw. His new novel, “My Life As a Fake,” is based on a literary hoax that rocked Australia in 1946, when two poets created an imaginary genius and passed him off as the real thing to a gullible literary editor.
But in Carey’s version, the fictional poet actually comes to life and like Frankenstein’s monster, pursues and torments his creator. Nothing is what it seems in this enigmatic tale of kidnapping, exile, and murder. What is true depends largely on who is telling the story, and in this story, all narrators are suspect.
Guests:
Booker Prize-winning author Peter Carey