num_pages: 608
description: In Australian slang, an illywhacker is a country fair con man, an unprincipled seller of fake diamonds and dubious tonics. And Herbert Badgery, the 139-year-old narrator of Peter Carey's uproarious novel, may be the king of them all. Vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch, Badgery is a walking embodiment of the Australian national character—espcially of its proclivity for tall stories and barefaced lies.As Carey follows this charming scoundrel across a continent and a century, he creates a crazy quilt of outlandish encounters, with characters that include a genteel dowager who fends off madness with an electric belt and a ravishing young girl with a dangerous fondness for rooftop trysts. Boldly inventive, irresistibly odd, Illywhacker is further proof that Peter Carey is one of the most enchanting writers at work in any hemisphere.
language: English
title: Illywhacker
titlecomplete: Illywhacker
genres: Comedy, Australia, Unfinished, Fantasy, Humor, Novels, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 2953
places: Australia
awards: awardedAt: 473414400000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 504950400000
name: World Fantasy Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 473414400000
name: National Book Council Banjo Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 504950400000
name: Victorian Premier's Literary Award
category: Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, awardedAt: 473414400000
name: The Age Book of the Year
publisher: Vintage