Nick Cave will release a memoir about the years following his son's death.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave

'Faith, Hope and Carnage' will focus on Cave's life as he tried to come to terms with the death of his son Arthur, 15, six years ago and it will be written from more than 40 hours of interviews with the Observer journalist Sean O’Hagan.

Nick said: "It has been a strange, anchoring pleasure to talk to Sean O’Hagan through these uncertain times."

Speaking about the lengthy interviews he sat for with O'Hagan for the book, he added: "that should do me for the duration, I think".

O’Hagan said: “This is a book of intimate and often surprising conversations in which Nick Cave talks honestly about his life, his music and the dramatic transformation of both wrought by personal tragedy.

"It provides deep insight into the singular mind of one of the most original and challenging artists of our time - as well as exploring the complex dynamic between faith and doubt that underpins his work."

Arthur died after he fell from a cliff in Ovingdean, East Sussex in July 2015.

Speaking previously about how he and his wife Susie were coping with their grief, he said: "Two days after our son died, Susie and I went to the cliff where he fell. Now, when Arthur was a small child, he always, always, had a thing about ladybird beetles. He loved them. He drew them. He identified with them. He constantly talked about them.

“As we sat there, a ladybird landed on Susie’s hand. We both saw it, but said nothing, because even though we knew the sad significance of it, we were not about to belittle the enormity of the tragedy with some sentimental display of magical thinking. But we were new to grief.”

'Faith, Hope and Carnage' is due to be published in 2022.


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