Carpentaria - Alexis Wright

Written by Alexis Wright
Read by Isaac Drandich
Format: MP3
Bitrate: Variable
Unabridged

Winner Miles Franklin Literary Award 2007

“A literary sensation.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Rarely does an author have such control of her words and her story: Wright’s prose soars between the mythical and the colloquial.” — Publishers Weekly

Carpentaria is Alexis Wright’s second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland. The novel’s portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other.

Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, farce and politics. The novel teems with extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, the queen of the rubbish-dump Angel Day and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stride like giants across this storm-swept world.

“Narrator Isaac Drandich’s broad Aussie accent and facility with intonation and pace allow for a clear presentation of this complex tale of the aboriginal people of Queensland. The epic is peopled with characters who represent a wide range – from ancients living in dream mists to contemporary youths fighting to keep their country’s people and resources from being exploited. Drandich convincingly presents these characters, giving each a distinguishable voice, without ever sounding contrived or forced: a real listening pleasure. His performance is an excellent complement to native author Alexis Wright’s award-winning novel, which reflects the mysticism, superstition, and harsh reality that define the political and cultural landscape of Australia.” — AudioFile Magazine

“Wright breaks all the rules of grammar and syntax to sweep us along on a great torrent of language that thrills and amazes with its inventiveness and humour and with the sheer power of its storytelling. It’s brutal and confronting and it’s sad and funny at the same time. Like the Gulf Country itself, this is big enough to lose yourself in.” — The Sydney Morning Herald

“A swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel: stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humour, sweetened by spiralling lyricism and swaggering with the confident promise of a tale dominated by risk, roguery and revelation.” — The Australian