Identity

by Peter Long

Overview

It's 1850 and New South Wales, Australia is awash with gold. Bushrangers are in the press, their names on everyone's lips: Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, John Peisley, Dan Morgan, Captain Thunderbolt. They roam free, uninhibited, spending big in the shanties. The girls love them, these wild boys.

Teenager, Larry Cummins, decides to throw his hand in with them. He'll think about consequences later.

Bail the coach. Grab the bank's cash. Scarper. Take the bullets, the whips, societal stings. If you weaken you die...

A tale of adventure, love, tragedy and redemption, touchingly told by Larry Cummins' great-grandson, multi-award-winning author, Peter Long.

Identity: Larry Cummins, Bushranger, is literary historical fiction inspired by a real story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781923105072
Publisher:	Hawkeye Publishing Pty Ltd
Publication date:	11/08/2023
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Peter Long has worked as a stockman, public servant, consultant, researcher and academic. He studied in Canada and holds degrees from University of Queensland and University of Toronto. His poetry has been highly commended in the McGregor Literary Competition and a long poem published in Paper Children, an anthology from that competition. He has been long-listed and published in The Stringybark and Sydney Hammond short story competitions and his collection of short stories long-listed in the 2020 Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize. Peter Long resides in Brisbane (Meanjin, Turrbal-Jagera country) in Queensland, Australia.Identity: Larry Cummins, Bushranger, is Peter's second novel. His first novel, Steve Hart: The Last Kelly Standing, is also published by Hawkeye Publishing.

Editorial Reviews

'The recreation of the everyday lives of the characters is absolutely convincing - as is the presentation of their emotional and psychological lives. Peter Long's ability to render the fine details of life in this period with historical authenticity is on a level equal to Hilary Mantel's writing about Cromwell and the 17^th Century in England. Larry's first-person accounts of the physical and psychological trauma of incarceration by the colonial authorities are intensely affective and disturbing. The descriptions of the brutal attempts to break prisoners' resistance and annihilate their identity would stand up against similar narratives of personal degradation in world literature - Primo Levi's If This is A Man and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag books come to mind. While readers gain an intensely affective insight into Larry Cummins' personality, in the final chapter where the dramatic personae of the novel are gathered for a wake/inquisition into Larry's life, they all give contradictory accounts of him. When it is noted that even his grave can't be located, it is concluded 'He's as hard to locate in death, as he is in life.' This is a clever twist in this narratively sophisticated novel.'

Professor Stephen S. Torres

'Larry was a larger-than-life character whose voice captures the very essence of Australian outback living. Despite the hardship he suffers, and the results of his own bad decisions, he maintains a sharp sense of humour and moral compass. Both sides of Larry are held up for closer inspection - the loving family man and introspective thinker, and the impulsive, poverty-hardened opportunist who lived by his wits and belief in his own streak of luck. Identity is a fascinating, fictional take on historical events, especially for Australian readers who grew up on stories of wild colonial boys. The main character is likeable and thought-provoking.'

K. M. Steele, Author of Hunt for the Virgin Rainbow

'A vivid tale of a bushranger's life and an animated insight into the motives, consequences, and the ultimate price of living as an outlaw. A page turner.'

Edita Mukic, Author of Between Before and After

'A wonderful follow up to Steve Hart - The last Kelly Standing. The way in which Peter Long has authentically recreated the essence of 1860s colonial Australia, told through the eyes of various characters, is nothing short of masterful. Colloquial dialogue, visceral descriptions and impeccable research, all weave together to form a vivid story, a time capsule to the past. The plight of Larry Cummins' colourful life of adventure, heartache, resolve, and risk taking, has been beautifully recreated by an author whose family connections make the story heartfelt and real. You'll peer down Larry's rifle sights, smell the gunpowder, gallop astride a colt pursued by an unrelenting trooper. You'll laugh, cry and suffer with him, you'll smell the sweetness of freedom, rebuild a life, find love again, endure hard times, take a chance. And you never know who might make an appearance in this metaphoric retelling of history. An intriguing and reflective ending.'

Jack Roney, Author of the Detective Jarrod O'Connor Series

From the Publisher