Period.
Was never even a fan of Nick's music, or all that familiar with it to be honest. Outside of hearing a piece of "red right hand" during the movie "Dumb and Dumber" and Metallica's cover of "loverman" on "Garage, Inc." I still to this day couldn't name one of his songs.
But.
I've never encountered a book that impacted my perspective on life so immensely or received so many re-reads, each as entertaining and insightful as the last... With the possible exception of Eric Blair's (aka George Orwell) legendary "1984."
When I read in an interview that he wrote the initial draft over a weeks-long methamphetamine-fueled seclusion in a remote camping cabin resulting in the over 1500-page manuscript, (which currently resides in an Australian museum) I hadn't even read the book yet.
In the distant late '90s, during the heights of "Internet 1.0" one of my favorite (then and now) bands, TOOL, used to have a literally physically produced "newsletter" that was typically a few xeroxed sheets with news about the band, musing and poetry by the band's webmaster/longtime associate Blair M. Blake, and occasionally, some books/authors that he and/or the band members found noteworthy. The glowing review by BMB piqued my curiosity, and subsequent interviews with the band's enigmatic frontman James "Maynard" Keenan and mysterious guitarist Adam Jones, who both mentioned how blown away they were by the intricate narrative devices and fantastically perverse, demented characters in the book sent my already piqued curiosity into interstellar overdrive.
I found a paperback copy at Portland's notorious "Powell's Books" and set about devouring it.
Which I did, utterly unable to turn away, in one sitting.
When I finished my first reading, I did something I've only done 1 or 2 times in my life... Turned immediately back to page one, and started over. Upon completion of that reading, (the next day) I did something I've only ever done the once. Flipped back to the start and began a third reading. Which I completed another couple of days later. I had to FORCE myself not to instantaneously start a fourth pass mostly because reading a full-length novel four times in a week seemed... Obsessive. (hahaha) Little did I know...
The extremely visceral and lushly depicted story was mind-blowing. So many bizzarrely demented events, from Euchrid's first memories as an infant in a filthy cardboard box, tearing off strips of the moldy wallpaper it had been lined with and attempting to eat them, to present-day Euchrid's homemade elevated platform, walled with rusty corrugated metal and filled with dead and dying animals from the gruesome traps he'd built and peppered the rural Ukelore Valley with, were hellish visions of a demented mute outcast raised by abusive drug addicts and moonshine sellers in an isolated area sparsely populated by followers of an insular religious sect called the Ukelites.
The entire story is presented as his dying recollections while he slowly sinks into a muddy bog amidst the noise of an angry mob of Ukelites, searching for him by torchlight.
The settings and events were so graphically described I swore I could smell the nauseating interior of his walled platform and the thick black axle grease he used to oil the mechanisms of his sadistically brutal traps. I could almost taste the toxic swill of the moonshine, whose recipes he'd learned from his insane father. The sale of it to the locals, both as a small child forced to do so, and later as an adult, were the only source of income for the Euchrow family, and later for the now solitary Euchrid.
It's not solely horrific imagery however. There's a depth that really can't be adequately described. Like when a group of angry Ukelites descend on and cruelly murder Cosey Mo, a prostitute that had befriended Euchrid, while he hid from them and watched, a mute-silent witness, as the only person who'd ever been nice to him was brutally attacked and killed by the self-righteous crowd. In his internal dialogue, Euchrid is shocked by the hypocritical masses, many of which were regular customers, whom he recognized having seen them coming and going from Cosey Mo's dilapidated trailer, and their bitter spouses. He contrasted the smiling saccharine faces of the Ukelites as they presented themselves in the town square, to the snarling, spitting beasts that cheered and jeered as they showed unimaginable savagery while they murdered his only friend. It is Euchrid alone who fully grasped the cruel fate of Cosey Mo.
There's a fully human beauty, a real tenderness shown via Euchrid's thoughts and memories, a soul-rending mute howl of agonized betrayal at the hand he'd been dealt by life. The wistful yearning as he peers through windows and sees what normal family life can be is palpable and devastatingly heartbreaking. Cave's overtly heavy-handed focus on the grossest aspects really provides a pitch-perfect counterbalance to the sweetness and beauty extant inside what would be ubiquitously described as a monster by most.
I'm reminded, then and now, of a particularly emotional and moving scene in Stephen King's novel "Cujo" where the titular canine, driven mad by rabies, is perched on the hood of the car that contains the mother and child he spends the bulk of the book ferociously trying to kill. The dog pauses, sees the terrified mother protectively cradling her son, and has a flash memory of tenderness shown him by his human family, seemingly aeons away, when Cujo was a "goodboy." He whines, mourning for the loss of that life in a brief moment of clarity before the swirling torrent of pain and madness sadly swallows him completely.
Cave's entire novel is, in a sense, an expression of a single drawn-out version of that same whine, hundreds of pages long, as a murky bog is swallowing completely a deeply ill animal, tormented by infinite oceans of pain and madness. Saddest of all, Euchrid never even was given a chance to be a "goodboy."
I would literally give up one of my hands to read that manuscript, which Nick Cave has donated to a museum under strict orders that it never be released, at least until his death. I don't say that lightly either, I'm a musician. It's somewhat difficult, I'd imagine, to play the guitar or keyboard without one of my two hands.
Cave has called the original draft unreadable and disjointed, a failed attempt to recollect a fever dream. He insists that, without the heroic and dedicated labor of his editors, and several rewrites, it would still be unreadable. He himself was rather displeased with the manuscript and only submitted it for publication at the stubborn repeated nagging of his girlfriend to let this work of staggering profundity be shared with the world. How wise and prescient her advice turned out to be.
I've been an avid and voracious reader since I was a small child... And, this literally just dawned on me seconds ago, but I read my first "grown-up" length novel at age 6, on a family vacation to Arizona. I'd been in a heated argument with my schizophrenic mother, and was grounded for a week, (out of a two-week vacation) confined to an attic bedroom, in Phoenix... in the absolute depths of summer. In one of my twice-daily bathroom breaks, which were the only times I was allowed out, my Aunt saw the despair on my face and said to me "Hey, I asked her if I could give you a book to read so you're not so bored... She said no, so don't let her see, but I think you'll really like it. I'm so sorry that she's doing this to us all, the kids are really upset that they can't play with you either. It'll be okay buddy, I love you." She hugged me and passed me a black hardcover. I glanced at the title, "kuh...?"
"It's pronounced koo-joe, sweetie, just make sure to put it under the bed when you're not reading so she doesn't see it, I don't want to get you into worse trouble. I hope you enjoy it, but I know you will, it's really good, I just finished it." She hugged me again and said "I'll try to talk her into letting you out before next week but no promises, you know how she can be. Now go on, before we're both grounded." She giggled softly, then smiled warmly as I turned to head upstairs...
Somehow, the obvious through-line between my first novel and my favorite novel has managed to evade my detection until just a few minutes ago.
It's been almost 35 years since that summer.
My Aunt passed away about 7 years ago. I thanked her profusely several times, but I wonder if she ever really knew how much what she did meant to me..?
It's times like this, with so much exquisiteness amidst the abject misery, that I really understand why Benigni named his film "Life Is Beautiful."
Thanks, Aunt Joy, I miss you, and I love you too. :'-)
Note: Photo is of my first edition hardback copy, sorry for the glare, I did my best.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016
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Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2001
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Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2018
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Top international reviews
WatKykJy
I've never read anything like this before
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2018Verified Purchase
Alexander Sokol
Original and thought-provoking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2013Verified Purchase
Z de MC
Dark, twisted, and brilliant
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 28, 2011Verified Purchase
Vladi
Great book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2020Verified Purchase
chris higgins
Reliable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2019Verified Purchase
TheReader
A Dark Little Gem
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2010Verified Purchase
L D'Arcy
Not my cup of tea
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2013Verified Purchase
Pam Beard
Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2016Verified Purchase
Mr. Robert H. Welsh
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2016Verified Purchase
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Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 5, 2015Verified Purchase
P. Kirkman
Read this
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2016Verified Purchase
George
For Nick Cave fans...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2014Verified Purchase
Tara Y
Darkly Poetic Masterpiece
Reviewed in Australia on October 26, 2018Verified Purchase
F
Five stars
Reviewed in Italy on September 5, 2018Verified Purchase
Valerie
If you like Nick Cave's Murder Ballads, you'll love this.
Reviewed in Australia on February 19, 2020Verified Purchase
