Description
Book SynopsisAbsurd, original and highly addictive, Their Brilliant Careers is a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Subjects include Rachel Deverall, who unearthed the secret source of the great literature of our time and paid a terrible price for her discovery; Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author, body-builder and inveterate racist; and Addison Tiller, whose stories set in the outback were bestsellers even though he had never actually travelled outside Sydney. And let’s not forget experimental writer Arthur ruhtrA, who wrote a whole novel without once using the letter C. Every page – from the dedication to the index – is fraudulent, each biography interweaving with the rest to form a magnificent lie. The result is a sparklingly inventive award-winning novel.
Trade Review`Blackly hilarious and structurally audacious’ – The Spectator; `A divine satire on the narcissism of the literary world’ – The i Paper; `The most unexpected literary delight of my year’ – Irish Independent; `Their Brilliant Careers … brims with crackerjack wit. Pressure is subtly built; punchlines are explosive’ – Australian Book Review; `[Ryan O’Neill] offers a book that is a piss-take, a celebration, a revisionist history and, perhaps most impressively, exceedingly good fun’ – The Australian; `A top-to-tail fiction that trades in plausibility...mercilessly funny in places’ – Sydney Morning Herald
