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Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan "Faith, Hope and Carnage" (Canongate)





The immense pain and grief that followed the death of his teenage son Arthur changed Nick Cave as a human being and changed the focus of his engagement with the world from creating art to spreading a message of compassion and kindness. This is particularly astonishing given the level of provocation, violence and obscenity in his early work (much of which was, it must be said, a way of grappling with horror's connection with divinity - what Burke called the sublime - as much as it was an exercise in rock'n'roll affront). About three years ago, Cave started a free online venture, the Red Hand Files, to answer questions from fans. This turned almost immediately from the where-do-you-get-your-influences kind of fan site to one of the world's best advice forums, as Cave responded to suffering people with more wisdom, empathy, and even humour than anyone, I'm sure, could have imagined before. I find it a must read, even as Cave's music has turned away from what I like most to something more ethereal. In keeping with Cave's new mission, this series of conversations with a journalist friend of long standing exhibits a similarly unprecedented level of transparency and self-revelation.

Cave is no longer willing to be one of those artists who lets their art be their sole public means of expression. He wants to talk about grief, loss, faith and transformation because he knows that other human beings have and will experience the same things and will be comforted by what he has to say about his own experience. Accordingly, he is as generous in sharing himself as a human being as someone at his level of fame can afford to be. I can't think of many others who have undertaken a similar mission, with the possible exception of the Dalai Lama (a comparison which might make Cave laugh out loud). Obviously, this isn't the right book for someone who's heard some of Nick Cave's back catalogue and wonders about the man behind the music. It's better suited to those who have been wounded in a serious way and are still finding a way to survive their pain and loss, even if they've never heard of Nick Cave or don't like what they've heard. I'm certainly not saying that fans should avoid it; only that they should realize that this Nick Cave is not the Nick Cave of a few years ago.

Book 2 - Carlene Bauer "Frances and Bernard"

Carlene Bauer "Frances and Bernard" (Chatto & Windus)




A fictional love story told through letters, “inspired by” the real life correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell. Since I know virtually nothing about either of these writers, I had no issues with what was true or not in this novel about two intelligent people who can’t find a way to make their relationship work.

It reads less like the epistolary novel it is and more like intimate voice overs in a (black and white, of course) film artfully cutting looming shots of the heavy-jowled 1950s architecture of New York with intense close-ups of two luminously searching faces.

In a period of human evolution when Captain America; the Winter Soldier represents the apotheosis of our society's hero myths, I find it hard to believe that there are readers who will sympathize with Bernard's epic struggle to believe in something/one bigger than himself and with Frances' idiosyncratic brand of Catholicism.

The novel's epistolary format furnishes an intimate spaciousness in which these great talents form a society of two: where they meet, court, love, exchange beliefs, confess and inevitably part. Letters to and from friends flesh out the romance's trajectory. I am astonished that first-time novelist Ms Bauer was able to voice two strong, contrasting personalities so true to their time and culture.

I recommend it.