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Title details for His Illegal Self by Peter Carey - Available

His Illegal Self

by Peter Carey
Stefan Rudnicki
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Che is a precocious young boy raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents—radical 1960s activists who are now among the FBI’s most wanted—he’s denied all access to television and the news. But he takes hope from his long-haired teenage neighbor, who predicts, “They will come for you, man. They’ll break you out of here.”

And one afternoon, the prediction appears to come true. Soon Che, too, is an outlaw, fleeing with the woman into the subway and pitched into a journey that leads them to a hippie commune in the jungles of tropical Australia. Here, Che slowly, bravely confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 28, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481566148
      • File size: 234276 KB
      • Duration: 08:08:04

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 8-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Peter Carey's touching story of an unassuming lad named Che who longs to hear the dramatic accounts of his outlaw parents' lives is read in a subtle, casual, and utterly arousing performance by narrator Stefan Rudnicki. With little in the way of dramatization for the well-rounded characters, Rudnicki's tone is so heartfelt and brutally honest as to make this tale fully believable despite its slightly larger-than-life plot. Rudnicki's straightforward reading of a far from ordinary novel is picture-perfect from start to finish. He dives headfirst into the story and relates it earnestly to his captivated audience. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 8, 2007
      Carey, who has made a career out of boring into the psyches of scoundrels, delivers a cunning fugitive adventure set largely in the wilds of Australia. Raised by his boho-turned-bourgeois grandmother on New York's Upper East Side, Che Selkirk, seven years old in 1972, hasn't seen his Weathermenesque parents since he was a toddler, but when a young woman who calls herself Dial walks into Che's apartment one afternoon, he believes his mother has finally come. Within two hours, Dial and Che are on the lam and heading for Philly as Che's kidnapping hits the news. Unexpected trouble strikes, and soon the boy and Dial, who doesn't know how or if to tell Che that she is only a messenger who was supposed to escort him to meet his mother, land in a hippie commune in the Australian outback. The novel sags as Dial, with the help of local illiterate “feral hippie” Trevor, tries to make the primitive living situation work; the drama consists largely of commune infighting and the travails of living without running water, but the narrative eventually regains its thrust and barrels toward a bang-up conclusion. While this novel lacks the boldness of Theft
      or the sweep of Oscar and Lucinda
      , it's still a fine addition to the author's oeuvre.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:8-12

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