Peter Carey, The Tax Inspector

Bruce Woodcock (University of Hull)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 9.1.1: Australian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Susan Kossew (Monash University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

Australia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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The Tax Inspector

was Carey's first novel written from his new home in America, and his first fiction to be based solely in contemporary setting since

Bliss

and the short stories. It is a bleak and disturbing vision of a barbarous society. After the spacious panoramas and historical range of

Illywhacker

and

Oscar and Lucinda

, Carey restricts himself to almost classical limits of time and place. The tense action is based in the outer suburbs of contemporary Sydney over a period of four days, those being the divisions of the novel (chapters 1-29 Sunday/Monday; 30-45 Tuesday; 46-57 Wednesday; 58-61 Thursday). The pared-down narrative has the dialogic quality of a film-script and fluently interweaves strands of the present with the past as the hidden legacies of individual and social history…

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1825 words

Citation: Woodcock, Bruce. "The Tax Inspector". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 November 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7891, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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