A Long Way from Home

　　Irene Bobs喜歡開快車。她的丈夫Titch是澳洲東南部一帶最厲害的汽車銷售員，當他決定參加Redex Trial──一場艱苦的環澳越野車賽，希望贏得比賽並藉此打響知名度，以增加他的銷售機會時，Irene當然地成為他的賽車手，同隊的領航員則是他們高瘦的鄰居Willie Bachhuber，他是一名教師，也是一個猜謎節目的冠軍得主。這個奇妙的組合就這樣出發了，踏上征服這場殘酷比賽的路途，奔馳在汽車實際上幾乎難以踏上的道路。

　　隨著比賽開始，小說也漸漸展露了許多令人驚喜的發展，在看似流浪冒險喜劇的故事底下，Peter Carey有著更為深沉的企圖，當這個三人組深入澳洲內陸，他們之間的關係也產生變化，而一個與政府宣稱的「單一文化」完全不同的國家樣貌也逐漸展現在讀者面前，揭露了一段剝削壓迫原住民的恥辱歷史。

　　故事背景設定在1950年代的澳洲，Carey的這部作品實際上探討了文化議題和這場帶來現代衝擊的比賽，描述了舊文化的影響如何在歷史中縈繞不去，以及由此而生的愛與傷害。(文/博客來編譯)

　　The two-time Booker Prize-winning author now gives us a wildly exuberant, wily new novel that circumnavigates 1954 Australia, revealing as much about the country/continent as it does about three audacious individuals who take part in the infamous 10,000-mile race, the Redex Trial.

　　Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator, Willie Bachhuber, a quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher who calls the turns and creeks crossings on a map that will remove them, without warning, from the white Australia they all know so well. This is a thrilling high-speed story that starts in one way, and then takes you someplace else. It is often funny, more so as the world gets stranger, and always a page-turner even as you learn a history these characters never knew themselves.

　　Set in the 1950s, this is a world every American will recognize: black, white, who we are, how we got here, and what we did to each other along the way.

　　A Long Way from Home is Peter Carey's late-style masterpiece.

Review

　　“This picaresque comedy goes thematically deeper as it heads into the Outback. The antic tone of this 14th novel by Australian-born Carey belies its serious ambition. The comic spirit slyly suggests Shakespeare, an inquiry into identity and the farcical human existence. . . . In the guise of a period piece, Carey’s novel raises issues of culture and race that carry a thoroughly contemporary charge.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
　　“One of Australia’s greatest authors . . . Carey employs both a multi-voice narrative and a continent-spanning car race to emulate the disparate voices and fits and starts that comprise Australia’s history. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal, (starred review)