Author Biography

Nick Cave has been performing music for more than forty years and is best known as the songwriter and lead singer of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, whose latest album, Ghosteen , was widely received as their best work ever. Cave's body of work also covers a wider range of media and modes of expression including film-score composition, ceramic sculpture and writing of novels. Over the last few years his Red Hand Files website and 'Conversation with' live events have seen Cave exploring deeper and more direct relationships with his fans. Sean O'Hagan has interviewed many major artists, writers and musicians over the last four decades. He currently works as a feature writer for the Observer and is photography critic for the Guardian .

Review

'[This] intriguing insight into [Cave's] inner life…offers inspiration and hope.' * Denizen *
'Cave and his faithful interlocutor O'Hagan have chiselled an all-time literary masterpiece from rough granite…Anyone familiar with [Cave's] hefty body of work will find much to savour, as there's plenty of rich, detailed and self-effacing discussion of his creative process and various working ­relationships across the decades. But perhaps above all else, it forms a guidebook for navigating bereavement and re-­engagement with the world following the death of a loved one…[Faith, Hope & Carnage] is a wonder.' * Australian *
'Wonderful…I am incredibly grateful that they decided to publish these conversations.' * RRR *
'Illuminating and restorative.' * NZ Listener *
'Vivid, witty...[and] occasionally deeply harrowing…A story suffused with love, teeming with ideas, a document of an artist's journey from holding the world "in some form of disdain" to a state of empathy and grace.' * Guardian *
'In the style of the Paris Review long-form interview, this meandering, luminous conversation between Sean and Nick, considers creativity, songwriting, death, grief, love, philosophy, and the crucible of the pandemic; a profound and profane book to dip in and out of luxuriously.' * Matilda Bookshop *
'A panoramic, coruscating book…The unstoppable energy, as well as the reflectiveness of Cave—the musician, the religious believer, the religious doubter, the family man, the collaborator and the friend—continues to be a wonderfully tender balm.' * Conversation *
'Essential…The often-harrowing openness of this book [stands] in utter rejection of indifference, cruelty and cynicism….[Cave and O'Hagan's] commitment to mining for truth of an audacious, transcendent kind is mutual and intense.' * Age *
'Illuminating…A great deal of beauty in Cave's descriptions of the "strange reckless power" that comes when the worst has happened…If it meets a need for Cave, it also feels like a gift to the reader.' * Sunday Times *
'An extraordinary, uplifting book…This is a book you could dip into if you had no knowledge of Cave at all, just to find someone unafraid to ask all the big questions: what is grief? What is forgiveness?…Everyday carnage has brought forth a book of hope and freedom and life.' * Daily Telegraph *
'An absolutely wonderful book. I don't think I've ever read so integrated and searching an engagement with how faith works, how creativity works, and how grief is bound up with both.' * Rowan Williams *
'A fascinating read…O'Hagan is skilled at drilling down to discover the most interesting conversational nubs, but it is Cave's words that are the star of the show. The man talks like he is writing poetry and the manner in which he describes making music is sure to delight both fans and casual listeners.' * Independent *
'Remarkably candid…The culmination of a prolonged and moving period of reflection…One of Cave's greatest skills is to bring a secular eye to the religious and a religious eye to the secular, the sacred and the profane intertwined.' * New Statesman *
'Astonishing...This beautiful book is a lament, a celebration, a howl, a secular prayer, a call to arms, a meditation and an exquisite articulation of the human condition. It will take your breath away.' * Observer *
'Illuminating…A great deal of beauty in Cave's descriptions of the "strange reckless power" that comes when the worst has happened…If it meets a need for Cave, it also feels like a gift to the reader.' * Sunday Times *
'An extraordinary conversation…O'Hagan's questions are sensitive and respectful…and Cave's answers are honest and vulnerable.' * Canberra Times *
'Cave's description of the physicality of grief—his panicked, vibrating heart—is mesmerising.' * Australian *
'My book of the year convinced me to change my life…I will carry it as a sort of personal bible for the journey still to come.' * Australian *
'An extraordinary book. Incredible.' * Toby Jones, Guardian *
'O'Hagan has extracted an extraordinary dialogue…Faith, Hope and Carnage demands to be heard…Surrender to Cave's ferocious eloquence, his creative velocity.' * Guardian *
'Probably the best celebrity memoir ever written about grief.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
'Illuminating.' * Herald Sun *
'I [can] think of few books that have brought home more completely the way in which grief and creativity work together. The book also reveals the way in which faith, without ever giving a plain, comforting answer, offers resources to look at what is terrible without despair or evasion.' * Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury *

Review Quote

'[This] intriguing insight into [Cave's] inner life...offers inspiration and hope.'

Promotional "Headline"

A meditation on faith, art, music, grief and much more - from cultural icon and bestselling author Nick Cave

Details