AustLit

'Definitions of myth, from accounts of creation to religious creeds, from Freud's Oedipus complex to today's media "legends," are as diverse as their makers. They do have one common denominator, however; all of them tell a "made-up" story, and also in the popular use of the word to mean a lie. Peter Carey challenges that usage directly by calling his novel a True History of the Kelly Gang. Simmons examines the truthfulness of myth with specific reference to Carey's mythopoeic fiction. Since Carey's narrative voice is that of Ned Kelly himself, Carey focuses particularly on the hero, or "man-myth."' (Publication summary)