True History of the Kelly Gang is a seminal 2000 biographical novel by Peter Carey about Australian bushranger Ned Kelly.The novel is divided into thirteen sections (each ostensibly written by Kelly), with a short description at the beginning of each section describing the physical condition of the original manuscripts. The novel also includes a preface and a frame narrative at the end which describe the events of Kelly's final shootout at Glenrowan and his eventual death sentence. Carey departs from what is known about Kelly's life by providing him with a lover and a daughter, for whom he has been recording his life history while on the run from the police.The novel is written in a distinctive vernacular style, with little in the way of punctuation or grammar; the influence of Kelly's Irish heritage is also apparent in his language. The style is similar to Kelly's most famous surviving piece of writing, The Jerilderie Letter. Excepting the frame narratives of "S.C", the novel does not contain any commas.
Tropes:
- Alternate History: Carey freely mixes fact and fiction; the most notable change is the addition of a fictional daughter for Ned.
- Armor Is Useless: Famously averted, as the Kelly Gang's trademark suits of armour protect them from the coppers' bullets and make them famous.
- Central Theme: How outlaws come to be the sociopolitical implications thereof, as well as home, domesticity, and post-colonialism being major themes as well.
- Cultured Badass: Ned reveals himself to be quite literate, if not formally educated, throughout his narration.
- Death by Childbirth: Ned's sister Annie dies in childbirth.
- Deconstruction: Of the Ned Kelly myth in general, as mentioned above, particularly the masculinity behind its contemporary view in the public eye.
- Direct Line to the Author: Each section of the novel is presented as a parcel written by Ned and mailed by Thomas Curnow.
- Disappeared Dad: Red Kelly left Ned and his siblings after his arrest and both Ned's daughter and Annie's children will later have one each as well.
- False Friend: Wild Wright causes Ned's arrest by lending him a horse that he had stolen; Truth in Television.
- Framing Device: Each section of the novel is presented as a parcel directed toward Ned Kelly's daughter.
- Functional Addict: Joe Byrne, whose opium addiction turns out to be his Fatal Flaw as it brings him in regular contact with a man who later betrayed the gang, Aaron Sherritt.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Nicolson and Hare, respectively, play these to Ned in Melbourne.
- Hidden Depths: Despite his rage and his seeming inability to understand his own motives, Ned's narration reveals his insights into others to often be piercingly exact.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: Ned frequently laments how different his life could have been, even admitting that all he wanted was a piece of land to work.
- Incest Subtext: Between Ned and his mother. Ellen's third husband, George King, is even described as being Ned's age.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Although there is much profanity in the novel, it has been censored (replacing vulgarities with terms such as "effing" or "adjectival") for the benefit of Kelly's fictional daughter, presumably by Kelly himself.
- Outlaw: Ned is declared one after shooting Fitzpatrick in the wrist, despite dressing his wound afterwards and despite Fitzpatrick seeming regretful. The whole gang are declared outlaws after the Stringybark killings.
- Put on a Bus: After two successful bank robberies by the gang, Mary Hearn uses the money to emigrate to San Francisco with her son and unborn daughter (the latter fathered by Ned).
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Ned, who is violent and often ruthless but takes great pleasure in helping others.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Curnow is revealed to loathe the Kelly Gang and to hold Ned's writing in the lowest contempt. Nevertheless, he is implied to be responsible for the parcels' survival and may have even worked on organising and editing them while the writing was in his possession.
