SOURCE: Radin, Victoria. “Toxic Waste.” New Statesman and Society 4, no. 168 (13 September 1991): 39.

In the following review, Radin laments that Carey's dark tone in The Tax Inspector is overly gruesome, arguing that Carey is at his best in his lighter, earlier works.

Peter Carey can normally be relied on for weather-resistant high spirits and brazen acts of generosity. Illywacker is narrated by a con man of 139 years who has grown a pair of magnificent breasts that suckle a babe. Oscar and Lucinda builds a glass cathedral in a river, in which the hero gratefully drowns. Bliss, being the tale of Harry Joy, triumphs over dark parable. Carey's novels are all fables or follies, but their design is so nicely demonstrated, so deeply embedded in unexpected largesse, that the reader feels stroked and loved.

By the end of The Tax Inspector, this reader felt abused. A Great Point is being made...