SOURCE: "Out of Efica," in The Village Voice, Vol. XL, No. 9, February 28, 1995, p. 59.

In the following review, which also includes comments from an interview with Carey, Woodward discusses themes in and the inspiration for The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith.

Like many strangers in this strange land, Peter Carey found himself beguiled against his will on his first visit to that cradle of American postmodernism, Disneyworld. For the Australian novelist, the sight of Mickey and Minnie greeting well-wishers along the vacuumed streets of their Potemkin village was like walking into Baudrillard's wet dream.

"They were like royalty, like Ron and Nancy," says Carey, sounding cheerfully appalled on half a bottle of lunchtime wine. Fifty-one, with an unruly, clownish thatch of hair and a lopsided grin that leaves deep ripples in his cheeks, he is genial soul whose comic tone often oxidizes on the page into something dark and...