The Kelly book you're asking about is most likely 'The Kelly Gang' by Peter Carey. It's a brilliant piece of historical fiction that dives deep into Ned Kelly's life, blending raw Aussie outlaw lore with Carey's signature lyrical prose. I stumbled upon it years ago during a bookstore crawl, and it totally reshaped how I view antihero narratives. Carey won the Booker Prize for it, which speaks volumes about its craftsmanship.
What hooked me wasn't just the bushranger action (though the Jerilderie Letter scenes are electric), but how Carey humanizes Kelly through fragmented first-person narration. It feels like listening to old family stories by a campfire – gritty, intimate, and unexpectedly poetic. If you enjoy unconventional historical perspectives like 'True History of the Kelly Gang', definitely check out Carey's other works like 'Oscar and Lucinda' for similarly rich character studies.