“Amnesia” is tough-going as an audiobook, not because Colin Friels reads it badly; actually, he is great on accents and enhances the humour. But Peter Carey chooses to tell this story of Australian alternative political culture and its grievances against the USA in a sometimes bewildering way. There are many time-shifts and the narrative point of view frequently changes, making it difficult to know who is speaking/writing, as Felix Moore, who describes himself as Australia’s “sole remaining left-wing journalist”, goes about telling the story of Gaby Baillieux who has hacked into Australia’s prison computer system. That system is linked to the US’s prison system and she becomes an enemy of the US, as well. The latest in many enemies, as Felix tells the story, because the political centre of the novel is the legacy of the 1942 “Battle of Brisbane” between American and Australian armed forces and “the coup of 1975”, when “the people’s government was taken from them” and “the governor-gen