Amnesia by Peter Carey (9780143572695)

Description - Amnesia by Peter Carey

In Amnesia Peter Carey, 'the greatest Australian writer' (Richard Flanagan), asks the most vital question of the past seventy years- Has America taken us over?

In Amnesia Peter Carey, 'the greatest Australian writer' (Richard Flanagan), asks the most vital question of the past seventy years- Has America taken us over?

When Gaby Baillieux releases the Angel Worm into the computers of Australia's prison system, hundreds of asylum seekers walk free. Worse- an American corporation runs prison security, so the malware infects some 5000 American places of incarceration. Doors spring open. Both countries' secrets threaten to pour out.

Was this American intrusion a mistake, or had Gaby declared cyberwar on the US? Felix Moore - known to himself as 'Australia's last serving left-wing journalist' - has no doubt. Her act was part of the covert conflict between Australia and America. That conflict dates back to the largely forgotten Battle of Brisbane in 1942, forwards to the secret CIA station near Alice Springs, and has as its most outrageous act the coup of 1975. Funded by his property-developer mate Woody Townes, Felix is going to write Gaby's biography, to save her, and himself, and maybe his country.

But how to get Gaby to co-operate? What role does her film-star mother have to play? And what, after all, does Woody really want?

Amnesia is Carey at his best- dark, funny, exhilarating. It is a novel that speaks powerfully about our history but most urgently about our present.

'Peter Carey is back in Australia with a bang ... It's funny, manic; so charged with energy that each sentence packs a punch - and reminds you that, at 71, Carey remains a wizard with words.' Jennifer Byrne, Australian Women's Weekly

'Great journalism and great fiction both live in the gap between noble ideas and flawed human beings. The saga of Wikileaks certainly dwells there, and so does this Australian two-time Booker-winner's best work - including this drama-farce of history and hacktivism ... Real and fictive history unfolds and fragments, people are kidnapped and freed, conspiracies are unveiled, and full-fleshed characters make it work. It's just as ambitious and urgent as it sounds, but more fun.' New York magazine

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