The Death of Bunny Munro
by Nick Cave
Canongate Books, Hardback, 304 pp, ISBN 1847673767
Price: £16.99

James Tanner

Nick Cave’s new novel is startlingly brilliant, its language as gorgeous as its subjects are ugly. Once Cave’s clever phrase-making has drawn you in, his success at making his bizarre characters lifelike and sympathetic makes The Death of Bunny Munro hard to put down.  It is certainly not, however, a book to read on the Tube.

Why not? Well, your fellow travellers will give you sidelong glances on seeing the cover, a scary Donnie Darko-esque rabbit disquietingly juxtaposed with the title’s elegant font and a dainty pink ribbon placeholder. They will probably start edging towards the train’s doors if they  happen to read over your shoulder: out of context, a page of Bunny Munro is often pornographic, nihilist and manic. Avoid this pratfall, crack it open in private and you will at the very least be amazed at the originality of this blackly comic and richly written book.

The story is summarised by its title and those of  its three parts: Cocksman, Salesman, Deadman. From its Raymond Chandler style opening in a smoky, bottle-strewn hotel room, we chart Bunny’s decline into oblivion punctuated by occasional comic successes. Bunny is, as he describes himself, a “cocksman”. When at the top of his game, as it were, he is (or believes himself to be) capable of seducing any woman, describing his conquests in ludicrous and repetitive detail that would be nauseating were it not so absurd. At the same time, he is obsessed with and constantly requires women-or rather, as he does not hesitate to inform us, specific parts of them. As Bunny’s fortunes grow worse, his power begins to desert him, and his efforts become pathetic and crazed. Despite myself, I could not help but root for Bunny as he begins his decline.

That in a nutshell is what makes this book so fresh. Were Cave to have neglected to make us root for his hero, the book would have not been a failure, but it would have been just a shadow of what it is. Take away the title character’s likeability and Bunny Munro’s would read like Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, but without the biting social satire of Ellis’s work. Here, though, Cave has made us somehow like a lustful, child-neglecting adulterer who destroys the lives of those he meets.

More remarkable still, Cave does this without resorting to farce. When novelists create an antihero, often the character’s exploits are explicitly humorous-for example, the wonderful Flashman series by George MacDonald Frasier. Bunny, though, is a tragic figure, and despite its humour this book is certainly not a comedy. Its world is an ugly one, and with the exception of his savant son, Bunny is hardly interacting with saints. From his fellow-salesman Poodle (whose face at rest reveals “needle-like teeth bared in peerless impression of a happy velociraptor”) to the countless slovenly women willing to hop into bed with Bunny, this dark world is not inhabited by pleasant people.

Cave depicts this darkness with linguistic flair. At first it might appear that the author might be a little too good at this, and that we might be embarking on a poem in prose which will get tiresome without a story to hang his descriptions on.   However it soon becomes clearthat this will not be the case, and you can comfortably enjoy his flourishes. His skill is on show in the novel use of single words ( e.g. “torches” to mean lighting a cigarette) and in snappy combinations like “vulcanised daylight”. The effect of all this language is to evoke a fully realized world tinged with madness, in the manner of Anthony Burgess.

Back in our world, it is refreshing to read a book by a person known better for a musical career  revealing a real love of words (how many singers would crack open the thesaurus for “tinnitus” in their opening chapters?). His listeners may be less surprised than others at the outstanding quality of the writing, and indeed at the strange story. Most particularly, his album with the Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads, evokes similar scenes filled with vice, sin and death. Fans might pick up a couple of references in the book to Cave’s musical history; Bunny’s obsession with a Kylie Minogue song is surely no coincidence given Cave’s own relationship with her.

Even as the language moves with the speed and unpredictability of a bebop sax solo, it is hard to forget the author’s presence. I could not get the mental image of Cave writing the book on a typewriter in a smoky, dark attic, brows furrowed with concentration. Not that this presence is a bad thing: Cave’s persona as an artist fits excellently with this story, and indeed should I revisit it I will likely try the audio version to hear it read in Cave’s brooding voice.

This book is witty, compelling and at times poetic. Both those who know Cave’s previous career as an author or songwriter and those new to his work will find Bunny Munro an intelligent and at times shocking read. This is not a book to give your grandmother for Christmas, but it is one that you should read.