Knickers and bollocks

Cover of Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro. Photo / Supplied

The Death Of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave (Text Publishing $37)

First, in response to the title: Good riddance. Bunny Munro is an oblivious father and chronic sex offender whose contribution to society involves plying a trade as a cocksman while ostensibly hawking snake-oil cosmetics. Women are objects to him, rather crotch-centred objects.

Author Nick Cave's endnote includes an apology to Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavigne that should really be hand-delivered to the pants of these singers. The obsessive Weatherstonian narcissism and overpowering misogyny of Munro challenges, in parts, even the infamous Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.

He has equally appalling friends, including an obese porn-fiend for a boss and an oil-slick wannabe ladies' man named Poodle. There's a son, Bunny Junior, who shows the unconditional love for his flawed father that can only end in tears. Ostensibly a father-son road trip, set among the mouldering housewives and depressing resort-towns of England, this is more a murky parable about lust.

This isn't the first time Australian singer Cave has picked up a pen. And unlike other celebrities who turn their hand to novels, Cave can actually write. His first offering, 1990's When the Ass Saw the Angel, was a well-received — and similarly dark — tale of pain and outcasts.

The languid rambling of Ass has been replaced by a taut and lean narrative here, but the author's signature Christian and gothic sensibilities still shine through: particularly in a peculiar — and jarring — climactic limelight confessional. There's also a thinly-disguised appearance by the devil, in the form of a tabloid-friendly serial killer terrorising England, and plenty of virgins and whores.

Fans of Cave, and also Brett Easton Ellis, will find the going heady and eye-popping, but more casual readers should be warned: there's plenty of vulgarity and bewilderment within these pages that may well offend sensibilities. Munro is someone you only expect to find in a hospital for the criminally insane, or film noir porn. While it's not required that characters in novels be likeable, it helps immeasurably if they're at least recognisably human.

* Matt Nippert is an Auckland reviewer.