Theft: A Love Story

Two Magic Puddings

Peter Carey calls Theft a love story, and yes, it is, though not like any love story you've ever read. There is also a heist story hidden amidst the drinking, wrestling, and cursing; and the electric wordplay disguises some really tight, dazzling prose. This crazy-making story is told by two siblings whose hilarious alternating narratives duel for the reader's attention like little kids desperately vying for a moment of their parent's time.

Theft opens with:

I don't know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen. It is certainly a love story but that did not begin until midway through the shitty stuff, by which time I had not only lost my eight-year-old son, but also my house and studio in Sydney where I had once been about as famous as a painter could expect in his own backyard. It was the year I should have got the Order of Australia -- why not! -- look at who they give them to. Instead my child was stolen from me and I was eviscerated by divorce lawyers and gaoled for attempting to retrieve my own best work which had been declared Marital Assets.

This is Michael Boone, also known as Butcher Bones, talking here -- not his brother Hugh "Slow Bones" Boone. Michael, he not of the Order of Australia and no longer possessed of a glittering artistic career, is, at the opening of the novel, stepping out of Long Bay Prison and into the guardianship of Hugh, his "damaged two-hundred-and-twenty-pound brother."

Michael and Hugh are rapidly sequestered to the beautiful country home of Michael's only remaining patron, with a small stipend and encouragement to create art, drink less, and keep out of Sydney. And for a while they almost behave themselves. Enter the beautiful Marlene Leibovitz, trekking up the muddy driveway in her Manolo Blahniks, with a mysterious mission and seductive (to both brothers for different reasons) manner. While her visit is brief, her aftermath carries tremors of volcanic proportions: a valuable painting is missing; the police point the finger at Michael and even believe he used the painting as a canvas for one of the first good paintings he has managed to create in years.

Loose, penniless, and just a bit crazy, the brothers set off to Sydney to clear Michael's name, retrieve his work, and perhaps visit his little boy. Of course, none of this happens simply; the plot is so dizzying to describe it in some sort of linear fashion makes the novel sound like something Carl Hiaasen would write. That is not a bad thing. It is just not the right way to describe Theft.

More apropos might be Norman Lindsay's wondrous creation The Magic Pudding, in that they both share a type of literary chutzpah and absurd humor. American readers may not see it, but as a fellow Australian I'm pretty sure Carey is playing conscious homage to The Magic Pudding, a book every kid growing up in Australia knows very well. It is in fact Hugh's favorite book and the character of Barnacle Bill is his hero. Part of Michael Boone's personality could have been lifted from Lindsay's wicked pudding also; curmudgeonly, snarly, and imbued with a gigantic ego, Michael "Butcher" Bones is a comic invention as much as anything. Carey's dual narration allows the reader to see him through his brother's eyes as well as his own, and the technique is brilliant.

Theft could be seen as a companion piece to My Life as a Fake, and fans of Fake will rejoice in Theft. Carey's dazzling prose is energetic as ever, narrated by the unreliable and the highly neurotic. The Australian vernacular gets such a run for its money I honestly worried that some readers would be utterly bewildered, though to judge by the glowing U.S. reviews I needn't have. Carey also continues his fascination with what defines art; how do we place value on a work, how can we measure its worth and what is fake and what is real? And he does so with such cheek! The art world is skewered mercilessly, the ego of the artist hilariously portrayed, and yet the creative act and the resulting work (whatever that may be -- Carey is not keeping himself to painting exclusively) is treated with passionate respect.

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