A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey

A Long Way From Home

Peter Carey

Publisher: Knopf 

Publication Date: February 27, 2018

A Long Way From Home is a long and bumpy ride courtesy of the Redex Race in Australia all the while exploring the tensions of Australia's racial tension between the white people and the aborigines. We get a taste of the traumatic history surrounding the Aboriginal people when Mrs. Bob's happens upon a mass gravesite and finds a child's skull, and when William Bauchuber is abducted happenstance-ly while navigating for Mr. and Mrs. Bobs, all from Baccus Marsh, while running the Redex Race. He is deposited on a ranch that needs a school teacher and interestingly finds out about his own life to boot.

The book is filled with broadly unique, quirky characters that sometimes while reading the book I wanted more about one or more of the characters for more pages in the chapter, instead of jumping around chapter to chapter trying to figure out within the first few sentences who the story for that chapter is about, which is like trying to spin your tires out of the mud. I would've loved a little more from Mrs. Bob's history before Mr. Bob's comes into the picture.
Mrs. Bobs is a strong, spirited woman who wished she was my next door neighbor. The adventures we could have would be always fun.

I truly enjoyed the story and it's humorist take on road races. I learned a lot about Australia's countryside and cities I had never heard of until this book. This story by Peter Carey which he has written like a love story to his country was lyrically told until the last few chapters where the story seemed to stall like a car when the radiator overheats and then sputters dead in the desert.

I give this book 3.5 instead of 4 only because I took a half point off for the ending.
You can pre-order this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble or do as I do and buy from an Indie Bookstore.

I appreciate having the chance to read this before it was published. I know I will be reading more from Mr. Carey. Thanks Penguin Books and First to Read for the opportunity to read, A Long Way From Home.