And the Ass Saw the Angel - Nick Cave

It's over fifteen years old, dog-eared and stained by cat vomit (thanks Kizzy) but my copy of Nick Cave's 'And the Ass Saw the Angel' takes pride of place on my bookshelf. If you are a fan of Nick Cave, you may or may not be aware of this, his first novel, but as you are indeed a fan, you owe it to yourself to hunt this modern masterpiece down at the earliest opportunity. Speaking in a deep-south first person narrative drawl, the main protagonist in this story is Euchrid, a backward mute son of an abusive drunk mother and an uncaring, obsessive god-fearing father with a penchant for setting cruel, sadistic traps for various animals unfortunate to cross his ...  Read the complete review

Three greasy brother crows wheel, beak to heel, cutting a circle into the bruised and troubled sky... And so begins the murky, downtrodden tale of Euchrid, a muted, inbred son of a drunk, and his virginal antagonist, Beth. This is the first novel from antipodean Nick Cave (better known as a singer/songwriter with The Birthday Party, and The Bad Seeds), published in 1989, and proving that lyric writing, poetry and prose are indubitably linked. *The Book. Euchrid acquaints us with his birth; an unglamorous event by all accounts, as his alcoholic mother, high on her own moonshine, White Jesus, brings him into the world in the back of a Chevy. ...  Read the complete review