Nick Cave was born in Australia in 1957. As a member of the seminal rock band The Birthday Party, and latterly the front man of The Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has achieved worldwide acclaim for both his songwriting skills and for his charged stage performances. His film appearances have also been numerous, with appearances in cult classics such as John Hillcoat's Ghosts of the Civil Dead and alongside Brad Pitt in Johnny Suede. The Ass Saw the Angel also quickly achieved cult status on its original publication.
The protagonist of Cave's pleasantly demented second novel, set in England, is living out a porno: door-to-door lotion salesman Bunny Munro spends his days seducing invariably attractive women, servicing both their sexual and moisturizing needs. His wife's suicide, though, threatens to derail Bunny's amorous adventures, as he can't shake the feeling that he might somehow be responsible. Another new obstacle is the need to look after his nine-year-old son, Bunny Jr. In an effort to escape the creepiness of the apartment he shared with his wife, Bunny takes his son on the road, teaching him the ropes of salesmanship. Meanwhile, a man in red face paint and plastic devil horns accosts women in northern England before a murderous turn sends him journeying south. Bunny's deterioration from swaggering Lothario to sputtering pity case suggests he is carrying around more guilt than he cares to admit, and his obsessive behavior, while a bit of a stretch, allows for an interesting portrait of modern family dynamics. Cave's bawdy humor, along with a gallows whimsy that will be familiar to fans of his music, elevate the novel from what might otherwise be a one-note adventure. (Sept.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
After a joyous ride from woman to woman, Bunny Munro, a sex-obsessed beauty product salesman, meets his comeuppance when he is fatally injured in a traffic accident. Not until his dying moments does he feel remorse over taking sexual advantage of his female customers and neglecting his nine-year-old son. However, the penitence comes only after many chapters of sexual gratification and coarse language, and one wonders if he is indeed sincere or if the author is merely seeking absolution for his own self-indulgence and bawdiness. Australian rock star Cave, moonlighting as a novelist, has an ear for the rhythm of language, employing dialog that appropriately reflects individual walks of life. But as the story, with little variation, follows Bunny door to door as he flirts with women and occasionally enjoying a "quickie," it soon becomes repetitious and tedious. Verdict Cave's previous novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel, has been hailed as "adventurous," but this work, laced with infantile wit, frankly goes nowhere. Reading like a graphic novel without illustrations, it may appeal to readers with a predilection for weird humor. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/09.]-Victor Or, Surrey P.L. & North Vancouver City Lib., B.C. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
In 1989 Melbourne-born musician, Nick Cave, released his debut novel And the Ass Saw the Angel-a lyrically dense (and some would suggest impenetrable) book, steeped in biblical imagery, violence and wry humour. Twenty years later the much anticipated second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, is a very different beast altogether. While still bearing the usual Cave hallmarks-the dark wit, lyricism and violence-The Death of Bunny Munro is a bawdy romp of a novel. If Dante had ever written a 'Carry On' film it may have turned out something like The Death of Bunny Munro. Bunny Munro is a self-styled ladies' man with a wife and a nine-yearold son, Bunny Junior. Narcissistic and swelling with hubris and lustful desires, Bunny Munro sells beauty products from door-to-door on the south coast of England and sets out to seduce lonely housewives- and pretty much every woman he meets-along the way. On the death of his wife he is set adrift and hits the road, hawking his wares for one final time with Bunny Junior in the passenger seat. As is evident from his songs, his earlier (and now this) novel, Cave has skilfully mastered the wry humour and grotesquery of the grand guignol. There is much to find repulsive in the character of Bunny Munro-and many of the characters in this book-as he descends into his own libidinous hell and to his inevitable end. Foreboding, trepidation and the reader's sympathies accompany him, and Bunny Junior, to the last page. In the quiffed Bunny Munro (rarely in literature has one lock of hair possessed such personality), Cave has created a compelling character. The world Nick Cave paints isn't pretty yet there is such beauty to be found in it-in the humour and pain and the hope, in his storms and his losers, in his lyricism and prose. While the Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavigne fixation in the novel, at times, wears a little thin, Cave's masterful and poetic command of language and his wry observations makes this a delight to read, as do the many laugh-out-loud moments in this otherwise dark tale. Nick Cave fans have been waiting a long time for this second novel. They, no doubt, will not be disappointed. Deborah Crabtree is a Melbourne-based fiction writer and bookseller
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