His illegal self, although starting in New York is mostly based in Queensland. It’s about a boy whose parents are hippies and revolutionaries. The courts decide to put him in the care of his eccentric granny. The story is about a trip he takes to find his father, with someone he thinks is his mother.
Written in the third person, past tense, Carey captures the intense feelings and relationships between the boy Che (Jay) and his supposed mother (Dial) in the humid conditions of Queensland bush. The hippie community include a few eccentric characters who come over well in the story. This is particularly true of Trevor, who is a sort of feral human, living off the land.
Carey uses rich description and evocative metaphor to build his story. An example on the first page – ‘You were some kind of lovely insect, expected to know things through you feelers, by kaleidoscope patterns in the others eyes, or the last page, - ‘What happened to the boy in that moment felt as if it could be measured with a twelve inch ruler, a sharp searing pain that somehow did not hurt.’
A good read and recommended.
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