The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

First US edition. 8vo. Pp. [x], 422pp. Quarter-bound black cloth over paper-covered boards, lettered in silver to spine; deckled fore-edges. With maps, footnotes and glossary. Jacket design by Chip Kidd.

Signed by Author to title page. A hint of sunning to dustwrapper spine, else Fine.

Carey's fifth novel. Winner of the [Melbourne] Age Book of the Year Award. Allegorical account of colonialism set within the wholly re-imagined world of master/client relationship states of Voorstand and Efica. Stand-ins for America and Australia respectively, Carey was bemused that U.S. critics failed to join the dots, only re-inforcing his point that the 'centre' is wholly ignorant of the 'periphery,' while, conversely, 'the colonies really grow up believing the real world is elsewhere'. [...] [T]he hunger Eficans have for Voorstand is that hunger of the historically dispossessed or transplanted for what they feel is the real world.'

The narrative itself encourages the reader to consider why two countries with an apparently similar colonial trajectory should today find themselves in a neo-colonial relationship where one dominates the other – culturally, economically and, ultimately [with its reference to alleged CIA involvement in the overthrow of the Whitlam government in 1975], politically. And the fundamental difference between them, the author implies, lies in the raison d'être of each land's settlement: while the Pilgrims set for New England, fleeing religious persecution in Europe, Australia was originally used as a human dumping ground for the 'dregs' of English society.

Carey uses the filial metaphor of a 'normally' developed child (Voorstand or America) who flies the coop upon maturity, and having unconsciously absorbed its parents' values, perpetuating her imperialist heritage. Efica (or Australia), on the other hand, a 'child' unable to overcome the trauma of being abandoned by her 'parents', is ever in search of surrogates and therefore a willing victim to neo-colonial powers.

In the Bildungsroman tradition, Tristan Smith, Carey's misbegotten protagonist, like a marsupial untimely torn from its mother's pouch, must therefore undergo a series of trials before he can overcome his identity crisis and become a cultural warrior capable of safeguarding Australian sovereignty. "[An] extravagantly picaresque tale of a vaguely futuristic and very bizarre world." –Publishers Weekly

[Ryan-Fazilleau, Sue. "The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith and the 'Pain of Unbelonging'", in The Pain of Unbelonging: Alienation and Identity in Australasian Literature, ed. Collingwood-Whittick, Sheila (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007): 119–142; Ray Willbanks, "Peter Carey on The Tax Inspector and The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith," Antipodes 11.1 (1997): 11–16; Dessaix, Robert. "An Interview with Peter Carey," Australian Book Review 167 (1994): 18–20]