SOURCE: Charles, Ron. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in One Man.” Christian Science Monitor 93, no. 37 (18 January 2001): 20.

In the following review, Charles offers a positive assessment of True History of the Kelly Gang, asserting that Carey's ability to give believable voices to historical figures identifies him as a “genius … of literary ventriloquism.”

Finally, a true history of the Kelly gang. No doubt, you've long suspected all those other tales about the outlaws who terrorized Australia in the 1870s were infected with English prejudice or Aussie pride. If you want the real scoop, you've got to read Ned Kelly's own words—God's honest truth—as brought to us in Peter Carey's avalanche of a novel [True History of the Kelly Gang].

“I know what it is to be raised on lies and silences,” the legendary bushranger writes to a daughter he will never see. “You are presently too...