True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Sort of the Australian version of the James gang from the American west. It even happened around the same time. This is a novel, although it may be based on fact - I didn't realize this until I read the acknowledgments at the end. It's written in the form of a journal by Ned Kelly, an account of his true history addressed to his daughter.

Which is part of the problem I had with the book. Kelly didn't know how to use commas, or, more correctly, the author chose that Kelly should write that way. Not only commas, but the usual things that an author would use to show that his narrator is uneducated. Makes the novel a little difficult to get interested in, and hard to read, and wearing. I almost gave up around page 200 - it was just more of the same, but I slogged all the way to the end.

It won the Booker prize, but I was not that impressed.