His Illegal Self was published by Random House Australia in 2008. Che (named by his radical parents) is a sheltered boy being raised by his wealthy grandmother on Park Avenue. His parents are fugitives from the Weather Underground. When a young woman arrives claiming to be connected to his mother, Che is spirited away on a journey that takes him from New York to the Australian rainforest, where he ends up on a hippie commune. The woman, Dial, is not who she claims to be, and the commune is not the utopia it pretends to be.
The novel explored the aftermath of 1960s radicalism — not the revolution itself but the damage it did to the children who were its collateral.
Collecting His Illegal Self
First edition (Random House Australia, Sydney, 2008): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Australian first edition, fine in jacket: $20–$50
- UK first edition (Faber): $10–$25
Projected values (2026–2036): Modest appreciation.
The Radical Underground
A sheltered seven-year-old boy from a wealthy New York family is snatched by a young woman he believes to be his mother — a former member of the radical underground — and taken to a hippie commune in the Australian rainforest. The novel is a study of the 1970s counterculture’s aftermath: the idealism that hardened into paranoia, the children caught in the crossfire of their parents’ political commitments, and the collision between American radicalism and the Australian bush.
Frequently Asked Questions
What themes connect Carey’s novels? The nature of Australian identity; the colonial relationship between Australia and Britain; the ethics of storytelling and the unreliability of narrative; class and money in Australian society; the relationship between the real and the invented. These themes appear in different configurations across his work but are always present.