Whenever the artist Nick Cave gets mentioned in the mainstream press, the story invariably includes some version of the phrase "not to be confused with the Australian musician of the same name." That isn't necessary with the novelist Nick Cave, who is the Australian musician of the same name. Twenty years after making his fiction debut with 'And the Ass Saw the Angel,' Cave returns to bookshelves this fall with the 'The Death of Bunny Munro' (Faber & Faber).

Whereas 'And the Ass Saw the Angel' was set in the American South and earned comparisons to the likes of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, 'The Death of Bunny Munro' is set in Brighton, the English coastal town where Cave resides, and has earned the following encomium from 'Trainspotting' author Irvine Welsh: "Put Cormac McCarthy, Franz Kafka and Benny Hill together in a Brighton seaside guesthouse and they might just come up with Bunny Munro."




Cave apparently came up with him during the course of his recent movie work. Three years ago, while promoting the acclaimed Australian western 'The Proposition' at the Sundance Film Festival, Cave, who wrote and scored that film, revealed that he'd already banged out a second screenplay for director John Hillcoat in just two weeks. "It's really different., "he said. "It's starring Ray Winstone again, and it's an English seaside comic drama. I can't say the name."

His writerly superstition was apparently well-founded, as things rarely go as planned. Since then, Hillcoat has been busy with his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's book 'The Road' (in theaters this October), while Cave made two records, toured and infamously took a pass at 'Gladiator 2' for Russell Crowe. Now there's 'Bunny' -- an English seaside comic drama with a lusty, lost and charmingly grotesque main character who could easily be played by Winstone.

The book will be in stores September 8; Cave will appear at New York City's Barnes and Noble Union Square September 14.