It's just chance that I read two Peter Carey novels in a row. While I appreciated the difference in period and setting between this and Parrott & Olivier, I found His Illegal Self to be a lesser work. A young boy named Che lives in New York in the '70s with his wealthy grandmother, who has raised him after gaining custody from his Sixties radical mother. The bulk of the story concerns what happens when Anna (aka Dial) arrives to take Che to see his mother. Plans change, and the two end up in Australia.

Parts of His Illegal Self feel like a boys adventure story; it's a very readable novel and we keep turning the pages to keep up with the new sensations that Che is experiencing. The character of Anna is a vacuum in the book; she fancies herself a radical and gives up a teaching job to go to Australia but her choices feel like products of the author's needs more than actions coming from the character. I think Carey means to highlight class divisions in the movement, since Anna comes from a working class background and her trip to Australia is a truly radical act. We never get inside her head as we do with Che though, and there are too may stretches where she doesn't come to life. His Illegal Self is entertaining but not Peter Carey at his best.