If you like reading about literary (poetry) hoaxes, this is a for you. It’s almost a whodunit. But: word of…advice: it will enrich the experience if you have read and know the plot/story line of Frankenstein. This reads almost like a beach book but there’s plenty of food for thought. Based, as they say in the movies, on a true story from Australian history. ( )

Mike thought this was rubbish!

[This is a review I wrote in 2007]

** Too pretentious and drawn-out for me**

Using a real-life literary fraud in 1940s Australia as the factual basis for this novel sounds like a great idea, but in this novel I found Peter Carey's style comes across just a bit too pretentious and starts to detract from the plot that he's weaving around some very complex characters.

For me, it became a very dreary book... I got so bored with the writing style, pace, and lack of variety that I skipped a good chunk... but even the ending didn't pick up! I'm sure I must be missing something from this cultural icon, but it wasn't for me, sorry!!!

I read this book to satisfy the FB challenge category "book from the bottom of my to read list" - it's been on my shelves for over 5 years.

The premise is a man writes some fake poetry and submits it to a publisher friend hoping to "take him down a notch" when it was discovered the poems were by a fake poet. The hoax takes on a life of it's own, the publisher is prosecuted, the perpetrator shamed and his life set down a destructive path. The story is told in flashbacks of the tricksters life.

I didn't like any of the characters; I was never made to care about the hoax or why it had such devastating effects; and I particularly didn't like that the whole book is written without quotation marks. I hate that style. What the hell does it accomplish except to make the conversations difficult to follow....or even to tell if there is a conversation. I found in continually irritating.

Overall, certainly readable, lots of poetry references, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. ( )

Accompanying the arrogant poet, John Slater, to Malaysia, London editor Sarah Wode-Douglass finds herself obsessively drawn to a mysterious manuscript that bears a legacy of fraud and danger.