Good novels are hard to come by, so I always welcome a fresh one by Peter Carey – a writer whose work I’ve read closely, usually with pleasure. Parrot and Olivier in America, his eleventh novel, ranks among his best, on a par with Illywhacker (1985), his darkly humorous early masterpiece, or True History of the Kelly Gang (2000), possibly his finest moment in fiction – although I harbour affections for such early (and quirky) novels as Bliss (1981) and Oscar and Lucinda (1988). 

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