My Life as a Fake

Melbourne, the late 1940s. A young conservative Australian poet named Christopher Chubb decides to teach his country a lesson about pretension and authenticity. Choosing as his target the most avant-garde of the literary magazines, he submits for publication the entire oeuvre of one Bob McCorkle, a working-class poet of raw power and sexual frankness, conveniently dead at twenty-four and entirely the product of Chubb's imagination. Not only does the magazine fall for the hoax, but the local authorities also sue its editor for publishing obscenity. At the trial someone uncannily resembling the faked photograph of the invented McCorkle, leaps to his feet. At this moment a horrified Chubb is confronted by the malevolent being he has himself manufactured...

Peter Carey received the Booker Prize for Oscar and Lucinda and again for True History of the Kelly Gang. His novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2010. His other honours include the Commonwealth Prize and the Miles Franklin Award. Born in Australia, he has lived in New York for twenty years.
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