Fredy Neptune

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Fredy Neptune
Fredy Neptune.jpg
First edition
Author Les Murray
IllustratorMike Golding
Cover artistAlex Snellgrove
Country Australia
Language Australian English
Genre Novel in verse
Publisher Duffy & Snellgrove
Publication date
1998
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages265
ISBN 1-875989-30-7
OCLC 222423058

Fredy Neptune: A Novel in Verse (1998) is a verse novel by the Australian poet Les Murray.

Told in eight-line stanzas, Fredy Neptune describes the experiences of Fred Boettcher, an Australian of German parentage, during the years between the world wars. The work was described by the British poet Ruth Padel as "a haunting, loving, fiercely democratic epic by a master poet." [1] It won the 1998 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Fiction Book Award.

In Village Voice, Steve Burt wrote: "Fredy Neptune is Murray's best work yet, an almost completely successful round-the-world adventure novel in enticing, flexibly slangy (and very Australian-sounding) eight-line stanzas."

Structure

The work is divided into five sections:

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References

  1. Padel, Ruth. "Odysseus of the Outback." New York Times review, 16 May 1999 (free registration required to view)