Penguin to publish new Peter Carey novel in November

Penguin Australia will publish a new novel from Peter Carey, A Long Way from Home, in November.

The book will also be published by Faber in the UK, Knopf in the US and Random House in Canada.

A Long Way from Home opens in 1953 in the Victorian town of Bacchus Marsh with the Bobbsey family and their neighbour Willie, who decide to enter the Redex Trial—‘a dangerous car race that circumnavigates the country’.

Penguin Australia publishing director Ben Ball said: ‘As we careen around the continent on the 1954 Redex Reliability Trial with [Carey’s] vivid and lively car full of characters, we see our country and our history afresh. As full of optimism as a shiny new Holden, haunted by gelignite-throwing fathers and crimes that hover on the fringe of consciousness, the Australia of the 1950s is both a long way from us now and utterly immediate. With the energy and joy of Illywhacker and the historical insight of True History of the Kelly Gang, this is one of Peter’s most ambitious, challenging and flat-out entertaining novels yet.’

Note: This article previously incorrectly stated that the novel would be published in 2018.

Category: Local news