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Notes
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Dedication: For our sons, Sam and Charley
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Epigraph: I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed: and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
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Listed in The New York Times Book Review's list of Notable Books for 2003.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
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From Context to Text : Peter Carey’s Monstrous Creation in My Life as a Fake
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 11 no. 2 2020;'Analysing one of Peter Carey’s hallmarks—fact vs fake or fiction, truth vs untruth —, this article explores the wide-ranging implications and ramifications of the Ern Malley affair in Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake, a story published in 2003, but which still resonates in 2020 given the current global attention for “fake news” and “fake truths” often used in Donald Trump’s toxic propaganda. This timely recovery of a debate in Australian literature that started in the 1990s is instrumental in making a case for rigorous textual analysis while tying it up with questions of legitimacy which have always haunted colonial and postcolonising Australia. By probing the text/context issue and linking it to the critique of New Criticism’s isolation of the text from contemporary circumstances as insufficient to capture textual meaning fully or appropriately, Vernay’s analysis attempts at reconciling the word and the world.'
Source: Abstract.
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High Wire Act : Peter Carey’s 'My Life as a Fake'
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 6 no. 1 2015;This essay examines how Carey displays the multiple fakeries of fiction in My Life as a Fake. It notes the multiple inter-textual references to the Ern Malley hoax and the gothic horror of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It examines the three unreliable narrating voices, the uneven characterisation of Christopher Chubb, and the magic realism seeking to animate Bob McCorkle and his present/absent book My Life as a Fake. It argues that the dazzling display of meta-fictional complexity, much celebrated by reviewers, contributes to the book's failure to create engaging characters and a credible narrative. [From the journal's webpage]
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On the Genealogy of Democracy : Reading Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 27 no. 2 2012; (p. 68-80) -
Inside out in Australia
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 71 no. 1 2012; (p. 56-62) 'The notion of an inner life - just like the idea of an inland - has long been equated with emptiness in Australia. Terms such as 'dead heart' to denote the red centre and 'outback' to describe regions outside coastal cities suggest that, in Australia, the inner is on the outer. Even in the metropolis there is, as D.H. Lawrence noted when he visited Sydney, a terrifying vacancy. Australians, he wrote in his novel Kangaroo, were 'awfully nice but they have got nothing inside them'. For Patrick White, this was the Great Australian Emptiness, an environment in which 'the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man, in which the schoolmaster and the journalist rule what intellectual roost there is ...' (Author's abstract)
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Damage Control : Australian Literature as Translation
2012
single work
prose
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 57 no. 1 2012; (p. 102-120)
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At its Heart, No Throb in Carey's Latest
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 26 July 2003; (p. 4)
— Review of My Life as a Fake 2003 single work novel -
The Curse of Ern Malley
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26-27 July 2003; (p. 6-7, 12)
— Review of My Life as a Fake 2003 single work novel -
Truth to Tell
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 30 July - 5 August no. 454 2003; (p. 24)
— Review of My Life as a Fake 2003 single work novel -
Life-Giving Lies
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 253 2003; (p. 10-11)
— Review of My Life as a Fake 2003 single work novel -
Malleable Fantasy
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 9 August 2003; (p. 9)
— Review of My Life as a Fake 2003 single work novel -
True History to Grand Hoax
2003
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 26 July 2003; (p. [1a]-2a) -
For My Next Trick...
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26-27 July 2003; (p. 4-5) -
What's Truth Got to Do with It?
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 26 July 2003; (p. 3) -
Carey on Writing
Carey's Monster
2003
single work
criticism
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 26 July 2003; (p. 4) The West Australian , 6 September 2003; (p. 15) Peter Carey has found inspiration for his new work, My Life as a Fake,in an Australian literary hoax from the 1940s. -
Flesh for FrankenstErn
2003
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9-10 August 2003; (p. 10-11) Summarises the main thrust of newspaper reviews published at the time of My Life as a Fake's publication in August 2003.
Awards
- 2005 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2004 shortlisted The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award
- 2004 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards — Best Fiction Book
- 2004 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award — Fiction
- 2004 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- Melbourne, Victoria,
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Kuala Lumpur,
cMalaysia,cSoutheast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
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London,
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
- Townsville, Townsville area, Marlborough - Mackay - Townsville area, Queensland,
- 1940s
- 1970s