’Peter Carey’s fiction is turbo-charged, hyperenergetic. His language has little time for quiet passages; his minor characters, even at their most incidental, are endowed with details of appearance and speech that belie their status; his narrative lines, when they run into difficulties of any kind, blast through them by introducing new inventions and new possibilities. This is what makes him Dickensian……a deeply engaging book. It responds to some of the biggest issues of our time, and reminds us that no other contemporary novelist is better able to mix farce with ferocity, or to better effect.’ Andrew Motion, The Guardian
‘An aesthetically daring character study… Carey imbues [Gabrielle’s] immersion in the world of coding and the Internet with a palpable, engrossing sense of joy and discovery. The New Yorker
‘I couldn’t believe I was so caught by the throat by a story about ‘malware’ and cyberspace and sabotage … but it’s also about a dark stain of political history, about a mother and daughter, about power and brutality, about being young and furious . I thought Felix Moore in all his humanness, messiness and determination, was a masterpiece of character-making.’ Hermione Lee
‘It is the story of WikiLeaks as if transmogrified by Dickens and turned into a thrilling fable for our post-Edward Snowden era’ – Luke Harding, Guardian
‘Effortlessly lyrical … a wild ride, told through an exhilarating … array of voices.’ Morag Fraser, Sydney Morning Herald.
Great journalism and great fiction both live in the gap between noble ideas and flawed human beings… history unfolds and fragments, people are kidnapped and freed, conspiracies are unveiled, and full-fleshed characters make it work. It’s just as ambitious and urgent as it sounds, but more fun. New York Magazine
‘Often rumbustiously funny, it has an almost Dickensian zest for colourful characters… Metaphorical vitality pulses through Carey’s prose ’
Peter Kemp The Sunday Times
‘Carey has twice the energy of most writers; but comedy, it’s clear, is something he takes very seriously indeed.’
Tim Martin , Daily Telegraph (interview)
‘Never have I read a novel in which I could see the genius of the writer’s mind so phenomenally at work. The physical descriptions are extraordinary The language is ecstatic.’ Carmen Callil
‘An almost poignant story about a girl made desperate by her parents’ self-involvement; the increasing lameness of the media as a true watchdog of democracy; and, most important, the willful forgetting of history. This is …perhaps the real fuel in Carey’s storytelling engine. Cleveland Plain Dealer
‘When Carey scratches the surface of his characters, he draws blood; he exposes raw emotions that are sometimes incoherent, sometimes self serving sometimes deeply compromising… He is sardonic and withering, but somehow optimistic.’ Patrick Allington, Australian Book Review
‘Utterly captivating in its energy, its eye for the telling detail of character or location, its sudden arresting turns of phrase, its vivid and tender pictures of our places. Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser
‘The exuberant account of plucky resistance to “a cloud of companies, corporations, contractors, statutory bodies whose survival meant the degradation of water, air, soil, life itself.’ The Boston Globe
Vital, funny and humane… a terrific book. James Kidd, The Independent
‘Carey has twice won the Booker prize for his excavations of Australian history in the 19th century in Oscar and Lucinda and with True History of the Kelly Gang. Amnesia carries that forward into this century, while providing a sharp riposte to those who say fiction can’t cope with the cyber age. Just as The Kelly Gang found its author immersed in Australian vernacular, here he is deep into the arcane language and hardware of hackers and coders’ Paul Dunn, The Times (London)
‘Amnesia is a witty and subversive account of three richly drawn eccentrics and Australia’s gradual capitulation to the blandly murderous corporate ethos that is choking the planet like a bright, shiny mould. Toronto Star
“He is who he is – Australia’s greatest living writer.” David Robinson, The Scotsman
‘Carey says a great deal in an entertaining, provocative novel, weighty with polemical intent, yet he never forgets to tell a story that is as large as life and as exuberantly complicated, and, as regards setting the record straight, long overdue. If fiction can summon the now, this novel has.’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
‘It’s… exhilarating, the first Australian comedy-conspiracy-cyber thriller. It even has a viral twist at the end. As I said, Carey can do anything.’ James Runcie, The Independent.
‘Some of the most dependably enjoyable prose to be found in contemporary fiction’ Richmond Post Despatch
‘Amnesia crackles with energy, inventive in its language… but never
pretentious, emphasizing the value of straight talking and laughter. Cary’s first concern, for all his righteous rage is to ensure that he provides rollicking entertainment.’ Jake Kerridge, the Express
‘Amnesia is exhilaratingly suffused with Carey’s wild prodigality of invention… Amnesia glitters with nervy verbal inventiveness and pungent characterisation. Carey conjures the longings ad anxieties of his wayward teenage idealists with the same pathos and precision with which he depicts the pains and disillusions of middle age.’ Jane Shilling, the Evening Standard
‘Mr Carey, who has already won the Man Booker prize twice, for “Oscar and Lucinda” (1988) and “True History of the Kelly Gang” (2001)—should be in with a chance for a third prize next year.’ The Economist
‘Carey shows he is still at the top of his game … magically pulling the meandering threads together in a coup de théâtre that leaves the reader breathless and — surprisingly — even hopeful. ‘The Washington Independent Review of Books
‘A kind of political thriller, but of a highly intelligent kind ,,, it’s political history, and a novel of place, and a salute to idealism.’ Buffalo News
‘[Carey] maintains the temper and Rabelaisian … You can pick any page at random and locate an energy that never seems to flag. His sentences hit their intended marks with an emotion that often feels like exasperated cruelty, and none of his characters are spared a little bloodletting.’ New York Times