Theft: A Love Story

Book Review

Peter Carey

What kind of book is this? What can the TurboBookSnob say about the latest novel from the esteemed two-time Booker Prize-winning author? That he has the incredible conceit to foist his private divorce fiasco with his ex-wife onto unassuming readers in novel format? That his characters are odious and tiresome? That the female characters in this novel are a joke in caricature format? That to spend any more time with this novel would be a terrible travesty? The TurboBookSnob can't write any more – read one of the reviews published in countless magazines and newspapers, written by people who are more prepared to kiss Mr. Carey's ass than she is.

Hugh had a reputation for being quiet and shy but the old bugger's normal medicated state is as continuously noisy as a kettle / bee-bop and shee-bop-and as we-phtaaa-unfolded the canvas on the floor he set up a sort of vibrato. My brother had become a car, God help us, a Vauxhall Cresta at eighty miles an hour. These things get on your nerves, but we endure, continue, and I may have looked sour and he may have appeared retarded but we worked like a team of carpet layers tugging and stretching, battling the stiff unsupple canvas, each victory celebrated by a small explosion as we stapled the fuck to Arthur Murray's resistant hard wood floor. Hugh was soon down to stinky socks and khaki shorts, all his rosy venous imperfection, a sweating shining Rubens double de-clutching on the S bends, I, the Speaker reached almost the length of the room but the width was not so easily accommodated and stapling on the long sides was like playing tennis on an indoor court-the damn baseline too close, but never mind.