Illywhacker is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was published in 1985, short-listed for the 1985 Booker Prize, and won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and The Age Book of the Year Award. It was also short-listed for the 1986 World Fantasy Award.
The novel tells the story of Herbert Badgery, self-admitted liar, trickster, and confidence man, the "Illywhacker" of the title (though "illywhacker" is also supposed to be Australian s...
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Illywhacker is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was published in 1985, short-listed for the 1985 Booker Prize, and won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and The Age Book of the Year Award. It was also short-listed for the 1986 World Fantasy Award.
The novel tells the story of Herbert Badgery, self-admitted liar, trickster, and confidence man, the "Illywhacker" of the title (though "illywhacker" is also supposed to be Australian slang for "a stick for smacking a child with").
Considered metafiction or magical realism by some, the novel is divided into three books of eighty-six, sixty-one, and sixty-six short chapters respectively, with chapters often shorter than a single page. It covers Herbert's life and marriage and that of his son, Charles, in a rambunctious and meandering style.
The novel is related in broad chronological order by the main protagonist, Herbert Badgery, but with frequent digressions that relate the circumstances and life history of Badgery himself,...
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