Justin Hampton at The Bookloft

So back when I was in high school, oh, around the time Lincoln got shot, every hipster with a horse and buggy knew about this novel this weird alpha-male Goth guy named Nick Cave had written. I had known about him through his work with the seminal no wave Aussie punk outfit The Birthday Party and then later on his own as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It was called And The Ass Saw The Angel, and while I never read it, I always wished that I did. It made the guy seem all artsy and deep.

Lot of water and exposure under the bridge since then: Kylie Minogue, Johnny Cash, The X-Files… kinda puts a crimp in your literary career. So it doesn’t surprise me that it’s taken so long for Nick to deliver a follow up. But it’s coming. It’s called “The Death Of Bunny Munro,” and we can expect it in September, thanks to Faber & Faber.

The plot, according to the publisher’s website, deals with a widowed traveling salesman (the titular Bunny) and his son, the imaginatively named Bunny, Jr., and their impressionistic romp throughout England. Like Willy Loman trapped in Macbeth’s castle, Bunny is besieged by ghosts and beset upon by demons both real and imagined. I sure as hell hope he sends a copy to Oprah.

Would that I could embed this 4-minute snippet of Nick Cave reading from Chapter 12, but the right bastids at the Guardian website won’t let me. A friend of mine has wondered about Cave’s new moustache. Kinda looks like it’s crawling out of both nostrils, I think.

And while you’re at it, check out the official website. You’ll be greeted by a creepy-looking furry who is apparently damned. The kids tell me it’s irony, so it must be that I refuse to get it.