Nick Cave‘s The Death of Bunny Munro is an unnecessarily disgusting cautionary tale of violence, misogyny, hyper masculinity, and how these traits percolate through generations.
It runs a bit deeper than your average martyr story about an irredeemably repugnant man, but it kind of screws itself over just as it starts to feel like it means something.
Death of Bunny Munro stands out by presenting you with a main character that is unequivocally evil, and not in a subjective way. At least the author knows this and the book does not defend Bunny Munro or his actions at any point; but that doesn’t make it any the more palatable to follow along his twisted-ass path. It starts out nearly unreadable, almost as mannish and simple and naive as a RH Sin poem, but miraculously starts to get into almost beautiful territory when we’re introduced to Bunny Jr and his precious, innocent mind and his love for his dad and the world at large.
Most of what’s good about this book rests in the midsection: the very intense scenarios, the rapid, combined unraveling of Bunny and Jr’s mental states as they are contrasted against each other in this bizarre grief-driven mini-adventure, and the often surreal visions that they are plagued with while you’re left wondering when the book is going to finally fulfill the promise that its title’s been making from the start.
Unfortunately, while this book often got so close to revealing something poignant, got so close and had within its grasp the ability, and in my opinion responsibility, to utterly cast aside the narcissism and pure evil of its doomed main character, it ultimately settles instead on the much more boring and cowardly theme that at the end of the day, human beings just want to forgive each other. And all the while, this juvenile revelation is being delivered through a character who can’t make it five seconds of internal monologue without speculating what he thinks Avril Lavigne’s pussy looks like (yikes).
If in the end, the memory-ghosts of everyone you’ve ever hurt forgive you with tears in their eyes as you’re fading away… good for you. I don’t think it does much good for the people you’ve left behind though, especially not the ones who look up to you.
In the post-Ghosteen era of Nick Cave’s career as an artist, I would honestly love to see this story revisited entirely from the perspective of Bunny Jr; Cave’s writing shines when describing the world through Bunny Jr’s eyes, and I find myself just wanting more of that.
So yeah, it’s a story about a gross dude and that is The Point™, and while it got so so close so many times, ultimately the point made is a little elementary and disappointing.
2/5
Read the original review on my Goodreads account here.