Peter Carey (novelist)

Early life and career: 1943–1970

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, in 1943. His parents ran a Holden dealership, Carey Motors. He attended Bacchus Marsh State School from 1948 to 1953, then boarded at Geelong Grammar School between 1954 and 1960. In 1961, Carey enrolled in a science degree at the new Monash University in Melbourne, majoring in chemistry and zoology, but cut his studies short because of a car accident and a lack of interest. It was at university that he met his first wife, Leigh Weetman, who was studying German and philosophy, and who also dropped out.

In 1962, he began to work in advertising. He was employed by various Melbourne agencies between 1962 and 1967, including on campaigns for Volkswagen and Lindeman's Wine. His advertising work brought him into contact with older writers who introduced him to recent European and American fiction: "I didn't really start getting an education until I worked in advertising with people like Barry Oakley and Morris Lurie — and Bruce Petty had an office next door." Carey would later describe Oakley as someone "to whom I owe an enormous debt — almost my life as a writer".

During this time, he read widely, particularly the works of Samuel Beckett, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Gabriel García Márquez, and began writing on his own, receiving his first rejection slip in 1964, the same year he married Weetman. Over the next few years he wrote five novels — Contacts (1964–1965), Starts Here, Ends Here (1965–1967), The Futility Machine (1966–1967), Wog (1969), and Adventures on Board the Marie [sic] Celeste (1971). None of them were published. Sun Books accepted The Futility Machine but did not proceed with publication, and Adventures on Board the Marie Celeste was accepted by Outback Press before being withdrawn by Carey himself. These and other unpublished manuscripts from the period — including twenty-one short stories — are now held by the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland.

Carey's only publications during the 1960s were "Contacts" (a short extract from the unpublished novel of the same name, in Under Twenty-Five: An Anthology, 1966) and "She Wakes" (a short story, in Australian Letters, 1967). Towards the end of the decade, Carey and Weetman abandoned Australia with "a certain degree of self-hatred", travelling through Europe and Iran before settling in London in 1968, where Carey continued to write highly regarded advertising copy and unpublished fiction.

Middle career: 1970–1990

Returning to Australia in 1970, Carey once again did advertising work in Melbourne and Sydney. He also kept writing, and gradually broke through with editors, publishing short stories in magazines and newspapers such as Meanjin and Nation Review. Most of these were collected in his first book, The Fat Man in History, which appeared in 1974. In the same year, Carey moved to Balmain in Sydney to work for Grey Advertising.

In 1976, Carey moved to Queensland and joined an alternative community named Starlight in Yandina, north of Brisbane, with his new partner, the painter Margot Hutcheson, with whom he lived in the 1970s and 1980s. He remained with Grey, writing in Yandina for three weeks, then spending the fourth week at the agency in Sydney. It was during this time that he produced most of the stories collected in War Crimes (1979), as well as Bliss (1981), his first published novel.

Carey started his own advertising agency in 1980, the Sydney-based McSpedden Carey Advertising Consultants, in partnership with Bani McSpedden. After many years of separation, Leigh Weetman asked for a divorce in 1980 so that she could remarry and Peter agreed. In 1981, he moved to Bellingen in northern New South Wales. There he wrote Illywhacker, published in 1985. In the same year he married theatre director Alison Summers. Illusion, a stage musical Carey wrote with Mike Mullins and composer Martin Armiger, was performed at the 1986 Adelaide Festival of the Arts and a studio cast recording of the musical was nominated for a 1987 ARIA Award (for which Carey as lyricist was nominated).

The decade — and the Australian phase of Carey's career — culminated with the publication of Oscar and Lucinda (1988), which won the Booker McConnell Prize (as it was then known) and brought the author international recognition. Carey explained that the novel was inspired, in part, by his time in Bellingen:

Move to New York: 1990–present

Carey sold his share of McSpedden Carey and in 1990 moved with Alison Summers and their son to New York, where he took a job teaching creative writing at New York University. He later said that New York would not have been his first choice of place to live, and that moving there was his wife's idea. Carey and Summers divorced in 2005 after a four-year separation. Carey is now married to the British-born publisher Frances Coady.

The Tax Inspector (1991), begun in Australia, was the first book he completed in the United States. It was followed by The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), a fable in which he explored the relationship between Australia and America, disguised in the novel as "Efica" and "Voorstand". This is a relationship that has preoccupied him throughout his career, going back to Bliss (1981), Illywhacker (1985), and the early short stories. Nevertheless, Carey continued to set his fiction primarily in Australia and remained diffident about writing explicitly on American themes. In a piece on True History of the Kelly Gang (2001), Mel Gussow reported that:

It was only after nearly two decades in the United States that he embarked on Parrot and Olivier in America (2010), loosely based on events in the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. Carey says "Tocqueville opened a door I could enter. I saw the present in the past. It was accessible, imaginable." Carey continues to extend his canvas; in his novel, The Chemistry of Tears (2012), "contemporary London is brought intimately in touch with ... a 19th-century Germany redolent of the Brothers Grimm".

Retirement from writing fiction

In a 2025 interview Carey said "I'm finished with novels". He explained that he had "got to over a hundred pages" on three different fiction projects in the two or three years after publishing A Long Way from Home in 2017 and remained happy with his technique, but that he no longer experienced the same passionate immersion in the work or the same compulsion to complete the story. Carey said he would continue to write non-fiction.

Controversies

In 1998, Carey was accused of snubbing Queen Elizabeth II by declining an invitation to meet her after winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Jack Maggs (1997). While Carey is a republican, in the Australian sense, he insists that no offence was intended:

The meeting did eventually take place, with the Queen remarking, according to Carey, "I believe you had a little trouble getting here."

The unhappy circumstances of Carey's breakup with Alison Summers became public in 2006 when Theft: A Love Story appeared, depicting the toxic relationship between its protagonist, Butcher Bones, and his ex-wife, known only as "the Plaintiff".

In April 2015 he, alongside Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi, withdrew as table hosts from the PEN American Center gala in which the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was to be awarded a "Freedom of Expression Courage" award. Carey, a former vice president of PEN, was one of 204 PEN members who signed a letter stating that "An expression of views, however disagreeable, is certainly not to be answered by violence or murder. However, there is a critical difference between staunchly supporting expression that violates the acceptable, and enthusiastically rewarding such expression." Writers including John Berger, Deborah Eisenberg, Eve Ensler and Keith Gessen all abhorred the murders while objecting to the PEN executive's unilateral decision to give the award.

Awards and distinctions

Carey has been awarded three honorary degrees. He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1989), an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2001), a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2016), which has also awarded him its Harold D Vursell Memorial Award (2012). In 2010, he appeared on two Australian postage stamps in a series dedicated to "Australian Legends". On 11 June 2012, Carey was named an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to literature as a novelist, through international promotion of the Australian identity, as a mentor to emerging writers." And in 2014, Carey was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Sydney University. In 2021, Carey was named by Carnegie Corporation of New York as an honoree of the Great Immigrants Award.

Carey has won numerous literary awards, including:

ARIA Music Awards

The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. ! Ref. |- | 1987 | Illusion (with Martin Armiger) | |- | 2015 | Bliss (with Opera Australia) | |-

Bibliography

Novels

• Bliss (1981)
• Illywhacker (1985)
• Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
• The Tax Inspector (1991)
• The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994)
• Jack Maggs (1997)
• True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
• My Life as a Fake (2003)
• Theft: A Love Story (2006)
• His Illegal Self (2008)
• Parrot and Olivier in America (2009)
• The Chemistry of Tears (2012)
• *Amnesia *(2014)
• A Long Way From Home (2017)

Short story collections

• The Fat Man in History (1974)
  • "Crabs"
  • "Peeling"
  • "She Wakes"
  • "Life and Death in the Southside Pavilion"
  • "Room No. 5 (Escribo)"
  • "Happy Story"
  • "A Windmill in the West"
  • "Withdrawal"
  • "Report on the Shadow Industry"
  • "Conversations with Unicorns"
  • "American Dreams"
  • "The Fat Man in History"
• War Crimes (1979)
  • "The Journey of a Lifetime"
  • "Do You Love Me?"
  • "The Uses of Williamson Wood"
  • "The Last Days of a Famous Mime"
  • "A Schoolboy Prank"
  • "The Chance"
  • "Fragrance of Roses"
  • "The Puzzling Nature of Blue"
  • "Ultra-Violet Light"
  • "Kristu-Du"
  • "He Found Her in Late Summer"
  • "Exotic Pleasures"
  • "War Crimes" Stories from Carey's first two collections have been repackaged in The Fat Man in History and Other Stories (1980), Exotic Pleasures (1990), and Collected Stories (1994); the last also includes three previously uncollected stories: "Joe" (Australian New Writing, 1973), "A Million Dollars Worth of Amphetamines" (Nation Review, 1975), and "Concerning the Greek Tyrant" (The Tabloid Story Pocket Book, 1978).

Uncollected short stories

• "Contacts" (Under Twenty-Five: An Anthology, 1966)
• "Eight Parts of a Whole" (Manic Magazine, 1970)
• "Interview with Yourself" (Manic Magazine, 1970)
• "Structure" (Manic Magazine, 1970)
• "I Know You Can Talk" (Stand Magazine, 1975)
• "The Mad Puzzle King" (Living Daylights, 1975)
• "The Rose" (Nation Review, 1976)
• "The Cosmic Pragmatist" (Nation Review, 1977)
• "The Pleasure Bird" (Australian Playboy, 1979)
• "An Abandoned Chapter" (Overland, 1997)

Contributed chapters

• "A small memorial" In: Stories of Manhood: Journeys into the Hidden Hearts of Men edited by Steve Biddulph (2009)

Juvenile fiction

• The Big Bazoohley: A Story for Children (1995)

Non-fiction

• A Letter to Our Son (1994)
• 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account (2001)
• Letter from New York (2001)
• Wrong about Japan (2005)

Screenplays

• Bliss (1985, with Ray Lawrence)
• Until the End of the World (1991, with Wim Wenders)

Stage

• Illusion (1986, with Mike Mullins and Martin Armiger)

Adaptations

• Dead End Drive-In (1986, adapted from his short story "Crabs" by Peter Smalley)
• Oscar and Lucinda (1997, adapted from his novel by Laura Jones)
• True History of the Kelly Gang (2019, adapted from his novel by Shaun Grant)

References

References

1. (29 January 2017 }}; Hilary Mantel {{cite web). "Dame Hilary Mantel | the Man Booker Prizes".
2. John Ezard, [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/oct/18/books.bookerprize2001 "Carey wins Booker for Second Time"]. ''The Guardian'', 18 October 2001. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
3. [http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/release/1080 "The Best of the Booker Shortlist Announced"] {{webarchive. link. (17 May 2008 , Man Booker Prize Media Release, 12 May 2008. Retrieved 30 March 2012.)
4. Alison Flood, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/17/peter-carey-booker-prize-longlist "Peter Carey: Parrot and Olivier in America Could Be My Best Book"]. ''The Guardian'', 17 August 2010. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
5. [http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/creativewriting/ MFA Creative Writing], Hunter College, City University of New York. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
6. Mary Ellen Snodgrass, ''Peter Carey: A Literary Companion'' (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2010), pp. 6-8.
7. Snodgrass, p. 9.
8. Candida Baker, ''Yacker: Australian Writers Talk about Their Work'' (Sydney: Picador, 1986), pp. 54-77.
9. [https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-book-show/peter-carey-oyinkan-braithwaite-tanya-scott/105800118 "Peter Carey on not writing fiction anymore"], interview with Claire Nichols, The Book Show, [[Radio National. ABC Radio National]], 5 October 2025. Retrieved 28 December 2025.
10. Snodgrass, pp. 9-10. See also Carey Papers, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, [https://web.archive.org/web/20050721061309/http://findaid.library.uwa.edu.au/cgi-bin/nph-dweb/dynaweb/findaid/carey1/@Generic__BookTextView/851;cs=default;ts=default;pt=1221 Series B: Short Stories], B.1: Unpublished Short Stories, B.1 (a) Early short stories 1965-1967, Related correspondence 1964-1966. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
11. Carey Papers, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, [https://archive.today/20120711102735/http://findaid.library.uwa.edu.au/dynaweb/findaid/carey1/@Generic__BookTextView/292;cs=default;ts=default;pt=851 Series A: Novels], A.1: Unpublished Novels. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
12. See also the [http://petercareybooks.com/Bibliography bibliography] in Andreas Gaile (ed.) ''Fabulating Beauty: Perspectives on the Fiction of Peter Carey'' (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005). Retrieved 30 March 2012.
13. Sonia Harford, ''Leaving Paradise: My Expat Adventure and Other Stories'' (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2006), p. 111.
14. Nicholas Wroe, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/06/fiction.petercarey "Fiction's Great Outlaw"], ''The Guardian'', 5 January 2001. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
15. Rebecca Vaughan [http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/PeterCarey/Biography.html "Biography"] {{webarchive. link. (16 January 2013 , Peter Carey Website, 11 November 1997. Retrieved 30 March 2012.)
16. (24 February 1986). "In search of the truth and an entrepreneur". Sydney Morning Herald.
17. (13 November 2011). "ARIA Awards 1987.mov". [[YouTube]]. ARIA Official YouTube Account.
18. Quoted in Sue Gillett, "''Oscar and Lucinda'': Shattering History’s Self-reflection", in Patrick Fuery (ed.), ''Representation, Discourse and Desire: Contemporary Australian Culture and Critical Theory'' (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1994), p. 195.
19. Judith Moore, [http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2005/mar/17/wrong-about-japan-fathers-journey-his-son/ "Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey with His Son"], ''San Diego Reader'', 17 March 2005. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
20. Susan Wyndham, [https://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/05/12/1146940732798.html "Ex-wife Comes Out Swinging"], ''Sydney Morning Herald'', 13 May 2006. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
21. Suzanne Goldenberg, [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/09/australia.books "Two Scribes Go to War"], ''The Guardian'', 8 May 2006. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
22. (8 June 2012). "Peter Carey: 'A novel always takes me beyond myself'".
23. Gamerman, Ellen. (2015-01-08). "Peter Carey on His Cyber Thriller 'Amnesia'". Wall Street Journal.
24. Mel Gussow, [https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/15/books/championing-fabled-bandit-for-novelist-rogue-australian-sums-up-his-underdog.html "Championing a Fabled Bandit; For Novelist, a Rogue Australian Sums Up His Underdog Culture"], ''The New York Times'', 15 February 2001. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
25. Charles McGrath, [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/books/27carey.html "Peter Carey: At Home in Australia, New York and Writing"], ''The New York Times'', 26 April 2010. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
26. Rebecca K. Morrison, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-chemistry-of-tears-by-peter-carey-7600562.html "The Chemistry of Tears, by Peter Carey"], ''The Independent'', 30 March 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
27. Alan Attwood, "Carey on Dickens, the Queen and Ned Kelly", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', 5 June 1998.
28. [http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/18542/ "The Great Australian Story is of Loss, Death"], ''Indian Express'', 17 February 2003. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
29. Susan Wyndham, [https://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/a-lovehate-story/2006/03/30/1143441267032.html "A Love–Hate Story"], ''[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]'', 1 April 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
30. Liam Houlihan, [http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/ex-wife-dumps-on-scary-carey/story-e6frf7l6-1111112511326 "Ex-wife Dumps on Scary Carey"], ''[[Herald Sun]]'', 13 November 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
31. (27 April 2015). "Peter Carey among writers to protest PEN honour for Charlie Hebdo".
32. (30 April 2015). "204 PEN Writers (Thus Far) Have Objected to the Charlie Hebdo Award – Not Just 6".
33. (27 April 2015). "Read the Letters and Comments of PEN Writers Protesting the Charlie Hebdo Award".
34. Jules Smith, [http://literature.britishcouncil.org/peter-carey "Peter Carey"], British Council Writers Directory. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
35. (2023-09-01). "Carey, Peter".
36. "Fellow Profile: Peter Carey".
37. [http://www.amacad.org/members.aspx Academy Membership], American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
38. "AP NewsBreak: Remnick and Wideman Elected to Academy of Arts". ABC News.
39. "Historian David McCullough, Composer Steve Reich to be Honored at Awards Luncheon".
40. "American Academy of Arts and Letters - Award Winners".
41. Australia Post, ''Stamp Bulletin'', No. 303, March 2010.
42. (11 June 2012). "Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of Australia - The Queen's Birthday 2012 Honours Lists". [[Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia]].
43. Office, Publications. "Honorary awards in 2014".
44. "Peter Carey".
45. (2021-07-13). "Peter Carey Named "2021 Great Immigrant" by Carnegie Corporation {{!}} Hunter College".
46. "History Best Original Soundtrack, Cast or Show Album". Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
47. (2013). "Stories of manhood". Finch.
48. (29 July 2017). "Dead End Drive-In and my part in its refusal to die". Daily Review: Film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more..