His Illegal Self by Peter Carey

When the boy was almost eight a woman stepped out of the elevator into the apartment on East 62nd Street and he recognized her straight away. It was the smell his heart knew - patchouli, jasmine, other stuff . . .’
His Illegal Self is the story of Che - raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, he is the precocious son of radical student activists at Harvard in the late sixties. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents, denied all access to television and the news, he takes hope from his long-haired, teenage neighbour who predicts: They will come for you, man. They’ll break you out of here.
Soon Che too is an outlaw; fleeing down subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, he is pitched into a journey that leads him to a hippy commune in the jungle of tropical Queensland. Here he slowly, bravely confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems. Who is his real mother? Was that his real father? If all he suspects is true, what should he do?
Never sentimental, His Illegal Self is an achingly beautiful story of the love between a young woman and a little boy. It may make you cry more than once before it lifts your spirit in the most lovely, artful, unexpected way.

(From Publisher).

Peter Carey received the Booker Prize for Oscar and Lucinda and again for True History of the Kelly Gang. His other honours include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Born in Australia he now lives in New York City, where he is the director of the Hunter College program in creative writing.