The death of Bunny Munro

[The Beast of Bevendean]

Cave, Nick
The Death of Bunny Munro
Canongate, 2009


The obsessed do not make good literary critics. Stamp collectors complain that even Trollope, himself a postmaster, gives the reader insufficient detail of the stamps used by his characters, while volleyball players point out that both Proust and Joyce, while turning our understanding of perception and experience inside out, say nothing about their particular sport.
Runners are not immune. I am sure I am not the only one who has sat through a performance of Hamlet thinking to myself that all the hero’s anguish could be overcome if he were to commit himself to enter the Elsinore Battlements 10k. And if that was a success he could then plan a trip to London for the marathon, accompanied by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. No doubt the prince’s difficult relationship with Ophelia would benefit no end if they were do a little training together.
In this frame of mind I approached Nick Cave’s new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro. There is not much running in the novel, at least as members of this forum would understand it. The central character, Munro, earns a living of sorts selling shoddy beauty lotions door-to-door. A priapic wastrel such as only Brighton could produce, when he is not copulating with partners, often rohypnoled into compliance, he masturbates compulsively, using at one point a public lavatory I believe is a favourite stop for the Marina runners. He drives his wife to suicide and takes on his door-to-door excursions his son Bunny Junior, a child who, to compensate for his abused condition, has memorised the encyclopaedia. Meanwhile, observed in moments in news bulletins, a serial killer who commits his crimes dressed as a carnival devil makes a baleful progress southwards toward the coast
Everyone who has ever run in this part of the world, particularly that stretch eastwards from Brighton to Newhaven, should read this book. I promise, the A259 along the cliffs will never seem the same again.