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y separately published work icon Theft : A Love Story single work   novel   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 2006... 2006 Theft : A Love Story
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Michael 'Butcher' Boone is an ex-'really famous' painter now reduced to living in the remote country house of his biggest collector and acting as caretaker for his younger brother, Hugh, a damaged man of imposing physicality and childlike emotions. Together they've forged a delicate equilibrium, a balance instantly disarrayed when a mysterious young woman named Marlene walks out of a rainstorm and into their lives. Beautiful, smart, and ambitious, she's also the daughter-in-law of the late great painter Jacques Liebowitz, one of Butcher's earliest influences. She's sweet to Hugh and falls in love with Butcher, and they reciprocate in kind. And she sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making--or the ruin--of them all. (Source: Trove)

Notes

  • Epigraph: Am, I to be king, or just a pig? -Gustave Flaubert, Intimate Notebook.
  • Epigraph: Joachim had been born before the war, in the years when children still had to learn by heart the thirteen reasons for using a capital letter. To these he had added one more of his own, which was that he would, in all circumstances, do exactly what he wished. -Macado Fernandez, One Man.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House , 2006 .
      image of person or book cover 822775514804660079.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 269p.
      Note/s:
      • A Knopf book.
      ISBN: 1741664829, 1740512561, 9781740512565, 9781741664829
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Knopf ,       2006 .
      image of person or book cover 8966291924332247777.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 269p.
      ISBN: 0307263711
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Faber ,       2007 .
      image of person or book cover 7971346140047845505.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 304p.
      ISBN: 9780571231508 (pbk.); 0571231500 (pbk.)
    • Toronto, Ontario,
      c
      Canada,
      c
      Americas,      :       Vintage Canada ,       2007 .
      image of person or book cover 6746254261885402317.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 269p.
      ISBN: 9780679314646
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Vintage ,       2007 .
      image of person or book cover 5068041582322638745.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 8 May 2007.
      ISBN: 9780307276483
      Series: y separately published work icon Vintage International New York (City) : Vintage , 1993- 19532994 1993 series - publisher novel

      'William Faulkner, Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Thomas Mann, Doris Lessing, Albert Camus, V.S. Naipaul, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, and Cormac McCarthy, among many others: Vintage International is devoted to publishing the best writing of the past century from the world over. Offering both classic and modern fiction and literary nonfiction in elegant editions, Vintage International aims to provide readers with world-class writing that has stood the test of time and essential works by the preeminent authors of today.'

      Source: Vintage.
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 6107267092758211149.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3rd March 2020
      ISBN: 9781760896522
Alternative title: Złodziejstwo czyli Historia miłosna
Language: Polish
    • Warsaw,
      c
      Poland,
      c
      Eastern Europe, Europe,      :       Bellona ,       2006 .
      image of person or book cover 5033236531500081199.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 304p.
      ISBN: 831110526X
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Other Formats

  • Also sound recording and large print.
Find library holdings on Trove

Related Works

Masterpieces Peter Carey , 2006 extract novel (Theft : A Love Story)
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 April 2006; (p. 5-6)
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (1)

Works about this Work

The Vulgar Reader Katherine Hattam , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2015;
Lives of Artists, Identities of Countries : Dependence, Displacement, Identity, and Australia in Peter Carey’s 'Theft' Jaroslav Kušnír , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Engaging with Literature of Commitment : The Worldly Scholar (Volume 2) 2012; (p. 245-256) 'After My Life as a Fake, Peter Carey, with his novel Theft, adds a new dimension to his themes of fakery, truth and lying. The novel reads as a combination of love story, detective novel, and thriller with a series of mysteries including an intricate plot which is further combined with and supplemented by another theme and symbolic level...' (From author's introduction 245)
Wrong About Carey? : Reading Carey in Post-Postmodern Times Andreas Gaile , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Rewriting History : Peter Carey's Fictional Biography of Australia 2010; (p. 285-298)
A Concise History of the Deckle Jessica Au , 2010 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 69 no. 2 2010; (p. 13)
y separately published work icon Outlaws, Fakes and Monsters : Doubleness, Transgression and the Limits of Fiction Chris Boge , Heidelberg : Winter Verlag , 2009 Z1810236 2009 single work criticism

'Peter Carey is one of the most remarkable writers of our day and age. The characters and narrators that populate his twisted postmodern and postcolonial plot structures are conceived as fakes and tricksters, monstrously distorted creatures and disturbed Antipodeans, struggling for possible meanings of life in the global fringes and beyond. Offering a critical analysis of terms such as liminality and transgression, this comparative study examines the intricate interweaving of faction in True History of the Kelly Gang, follows Christopher Chubb into the entanglements between the gnarled tropical trees of Malaysia and the dark recesses of the storyteller's mind in My Life as a Fake, and joins the Bones Brothers on their journey to Japan and the US in Theft: A Love Story, a book on art, integrity and complicity. Moreover, for the first time in a book-length study, His Illegal Self will be interpreted and placed in the context of ethical criticism and cosmopolitan theory.' (Source: Publisher website).

Contents:

  • Circumferences, Perimeters, Crossings, or, Decoding the Book's Subtitle: An Introduction
  • The Ned Kelly Puzzle: True History of the Kelly Gang and the Commodification of an Enigma
  • Begetting the Monster: My Life as a Fake
  • Between Beauty and Horror: Theft: A Love Story
  • Conclusion, No Conclusion, or, Selves, Societies, Stories: An Outlook
Dazzling Dashes Full of Manic Mysteries Mark Thomas , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 1 April 2006; (p. 11-12)
— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
Carey's Adrenalin Rush on the Art World Rosemary Sorensen , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 1-2 April 2006; (p. 23)
— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
Glorious Character Katharine England , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 1 April 2006; (p. 10)
— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
Carey's Ripper Mystery Keeps You Laughing Ian Nichols , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 1 April 2006; (p. 9)
— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
Grit of a Great Peter Craven , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 8-9 April 2006; (p. 11-12)
— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
Art of the Long Lunch Chris Brice , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 1 April 2006; (p. 11)
A Love-Hate Story Susan Wyndham , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 1-2 April 2006; (p. 6-7)
Love, Lies and Masterpieces Stephen Romei , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 April 2006; (p. 4)
Bones to Pick with Arts Real Frauds Jason Steger , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 1 April 2006; (p. 26)
Carey Changes in Space and Times Gillian Lord , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 8 April 2006; (p. 10)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (55)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (7)
Last amended 13 Jul 2021 12:35:38
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
  • Manhattan, New York (City), New York (State),
    c
    United States of America (USA),
    c
    Americas,
  • Tokyo, Honshu,
    c
    Japan,
    c
    East Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
  • Bellingen, Dorrigo - Bellingen area, New England, New South Wales,
  • Bacchus Marsh, Bacchus Marsh - Ballan area, Melbourne - Outer West / North West, Melbourne, Victoria,
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