Theft: A Love Story - Peter Carey

Title: Theft: A Love Story
Author: Peter Carey
Publisher: Knopf / Random House Australia
Format: Hardcover with dust jacket
First Edition, 2006
ISBN: 9781740512565

Condition: Very good second-hand condition. Dust jacket shows light shelf wear and minor rubbing to edges and corners. Binding remains firm and pages are clean throughout.

Theft: A Love Story is a sharp, darkly comic literary novel about art, fraud, obsession, and family loyalty. The story follows Michael “Butcher” Boone, a once-celebrated Australian painter whose career and reputation have collapsed after scandal and divorce. Living in near-isolation with his eccentric and fiercely protective brother Hugh, Butcher is drawn into the orbit of a glamorous art dealer and a mysterious international art world that promises redemption — and disaster.

Told through alternating voices, including Hugh’s distinctive and often hilarious narration, the novel blends crime story, satire, and emotional drama into a meditation on authenticity, artistic value, and deception. Carey explores the absurdities of the contemporary art market while also creating an intimate portrait of damaged but deeply connected siblings.