“30 Days in Sydney is a brief and heartfelt account of an expatriate writer revisiting his past, examining as he does so the paradox of a blessed country with a bloody, accursed past…. Less than a conventional travel book, but also much more, it’s a little beauty of a book.” Terence Blacker, Sunday Times (London)
“[A]fabulously idiosyncratic small masterpiece …. Only a magician with a vibrant sense of humour – the book is wildly funny -could reveal the terrors of late-ish middle age in an old country, while at the same time telling us everything we need to know about Sydney’s history, its harbour, its beaches, its restaurants, flora, fauna, architecture, corruption and booze… 30 Days in Sydney is a book about that city like none other, a magical tuck box with goodies tucked away in odd places: it’s so good it takes your breath away.” Carmen Callil,The Times (London)
“There are two things Peter Carey does better than almost anyone writing at present: spinning yarns and making his characters talk… Here, in this lively ramble around Sydney (“a wildly distorted account” as he calls it), his facility pays handsome dividends…When I got to the end of this exhilaratingly offbeat book, I realised that Carey had captured the essence of Sydney faithfully and comprehensively its physical beauty and man-made ugliness; its hedonism as well as its sleaze; and, above all, the memories of its origins as a jail and as a place to make a quick quid (mostly from rum) which can still be discerned beneath the textures of everyday life.”
—Andrew Riemer, Sydney Morning Herald
“Non-Sydneysiders will be rightly intrigued and appalled by the city as Carey renders it. It’s both a tough and compassionate place. Ugly and beautiful. Like all cities. And Carey, cub reporter, has given us a new and highly enjoyable aspect to his skills as a writer.”
—Matt Condon, Sun Herald
“ Mr. Carey’s subtitle is “A Wildly Distorted Account”, and, for all its apparent casualness, there’s more than a hint here of the novelist’s art ….often hilarious…
30 Days in Sydney is the next best thing to, well, 30 days in Sydney.”
—Economist
“A ‘wildly distorted account’ indeed. It’s a little gem for which an alternative subtitle might have been A True History of the Carey Gang…It is a masterful portrait of Australian masculinity, in all its bravado, insecurity, complacency, intelligence, baseness, gentility, larkishness and humour.…To use one of Carey’s own phrases, reading this book made me feel “home and homesick” all at once. Smart, brash and warm, 30 Days in Sydney is exactly like the city itself.”
—The Globe and Mail (Canada)
“Carey’s modestly sized but marvellously enriching book about a city and friendship… This is a vivid, eccentric, and ultimately illuminating voyage of self-discovery through a city with a heart of driven gold as Carey and a group of old cronies travel through today’s Sydney and their own past lives. When Carey writes well, he produces words and sentences which etch themselves into the mind.”
—The Press (Christchurch)
“Carey’s book acknowledges the dark past, and is fearful for the future of a city run by “the politicians and the developers.” But most of all, this is a hymn of praise to Sydney and to its people. A little book, but an incredibly rich one.”
—Scotland on Sunday
“Carey has bottled a world city in 248 small pages. It is a vintage performance.
He makes you want to get on the next Qantas flight out of Heathrow.”
—The Evening Standard (London)
“This enjoyable book represents Carey’s zany attempt to get his own overview of Sydney and to define his feelings about it. History is the key: history in Sydney is “like a bloodstain that keeps showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession”….Irresistible.” Victoria Glendinning,
—The Daily Telegraph (London)
“At one level, it’s a playful, hilarious travelogue, a coming-home book and a portrait of a city. At another, it’s a story that reaches inside and twists your heart. Because, underneath the bluster and changed-name characters and “wild distortion”, you know it’s true….. 30 Days goes to the heart of Peter Carey’s literary concerns. It is a deep and moving book, one of the profoundest considerations of place, friendship, belonging and imagination that you’ll ever read.”
—Brian Morton, The Sunday Herald
“Carey’s book acknowledges the dark past, and is fearful for the future of a city run by “the polluticians and the developers.” But most of all, this is a hymn of praise to Sydney and to its people. A little book, but an incredibly rich one.”
—Scotland on Sunday