CAREY, Peter

(1943-)

   Australian writer, once in advertising, an experience that pervades his work. PC's high reputation is mainly for mainstream novels like Oscar and Lucinda (1988), which won the Booker Prize. However, a streak of ironic FANTASY has run through his work from the beginning, occasionally taking the form of sf. Bliss (1981) and Illywhacker (1985) can both be regarded as fantasies (if you believe their unreliable narrators), the first about a man who dies and goes to Hell (much like Earth), the second a funny and touching picaresque which, although it is told by a liar, may in part be true; he practises INVISIBILITY and claims to span a century of Australian history, bits of which he recounts. And both The Tax Inspector (1991) and The Unusual Life of Tristran Smith (1994) - which is set in an imaginary country - are FABULATIONS. PC's sf fabulations in short forms, droll, morbid and scarifying by turns, are contained in two early collections, The Fat Man in History (coll 1974) and War Crimes (coll 1979); a selection from both was published, confusingly, as The Fat Man in History (coll 1980 UK; vt Exotic Pleasures 1981 UK). Among them, "Do You Love Me?" has a world subject to reality leakages, "The Chance" features a "Genetic Lottery" in which humans can get new bodies while keeping their memories, and "Exotic Pleasures" has ALIEN birdlife which transmits pleasure when touched and may destroy us all.

   PN