"If you want to understand the weight of Ned Kelly in Australian life you would better off thinking of Thomas Jefferson rather than Jesse James. Australia has no statesman or philosopher who takes the same amount of imaginative space as Kelly. His story is our great foundation myth, one that sustains and illuminates the national character.

"Yet for all our familiarity with the drama, we have been reluctant to imagine the emotional life of the actors. One quick example: it is no secret that Ned Kelly's father died when he was 12, that he was the oldest boy, that he took responsibility for his family and became The Man. Ned and his mother were very close all his life, and his actions in his last two years seem largely motivated by his desperation to get her out of gaol. 'I AM A WIDOW'S SON OUTLAWED AND MUST BE OBEYED'

"There are no photographs of the young Ellen Kelly, but there is no doubt she was a wild woman. She had lovers, husbands, children by numerous fathers. If we only imagine her son as a hero, then we cannot allow him to be jealous of these men. But if we allow ourselves to think of him as a growing boy we can permit him to be human.

"I am always very reluctant to say a novel is 'about' anything, but I suppose I have just said that True History of the Kelly Gang is 'about' a mother an a son."