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Secco is my best friend, even though I might have never told him. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, his sharp, dark sarcasm makes me burst out laughing. He's a perpetually dissatisfied collector, obsessed with first editions or those out of print. For some essential albums, he owns something like 4 copies. Two sealed, just in case; one for listening at home, and a "battle" one for listening in the car. Yes, in the car, because he had a CD holder installed. If I were a seller, I’d hate him because he is incredibly picky, one of those who notices details invisible to me. When we go to fairs, he spends three hours flipping through the vinyl or CDs. He makes four rounds of the stalls without buying anything. He silently scans and then returns to where he started. He looks like a dog looking for a place to pee. He's about to lift his leg but no… he goes to sniff another unsuspecting vendor.
He has introduced me to a myriad of bands with his recommendations, and we've seen at least fifty concerts together out of town. For his birthday, I gave him the first edition, strictly "near mint," of Doris Duke's masterpiece and a book by Bunker. His eyes shine because, unbelievably, he was missing that record. I don't think he cared much about the book. So, in February, when I turned 43, he gave me the first edition of "Tender Prey" by Nick Cave and "The Ass Saw the Angel."
I read this book with the vinyl playing in the background, and the combination of prose and music is a perfect blend of gothic, dirty, and hallucinogenic atmospheres, perpetually balancing between reality and nightmare.
Bullshit! I would've liked to read it at home with the stereo blaring "Mercy," "Up Jump The Devil," "Watching Alice," "Mercy Seat," and "Sugar Sugar Sugar" at full volume. The truth is, I had three days of relaxation to read it only now on the beach, under a blistering and dazzling sun; basically in the least suitable place with aching eyes. And that’s where I’m writing from, so don’t bother if there are any spelling mistakes. I'd like to see you deal with this light, sand, and salt.
We’re introduced to the book with prose that is at times poetic, describing the slow circular flight of three crows, a bad omen, over a swamp in a remote town in the southern United States in the '30s. We cautiously delve into the first pages, and it feels like being transported directly into the Old Testament. The protagonist is black. Not for the color of his skin but because Euchrid, that's his name, is the product of a rotten and violent love between a mad, alcoholic mother and a sadistic father with diseased blood inherited from a family of murderers driven out of the mountains with pitchforks. Ma’ spends her time swearing and drinking, Pa’ building card houses and creating diabolical traps: he goes to capture live animals of every kind in the swamp only to have them slaughtered in an old cistern. He stands above "the arena" and revels as he witnesses their creeping and vibrant fight for life. The boy manages to survive in this idyllic setting only because he is mute. Like a mule that endures his father's rages, he silently observes, tolerates people's harassment, and grows up as if he were almost invisible. He observes the entire valley and sarcastically revels in others' misfortunes. He falls in love with a whore but is a reverse King Midas: everything he touches turns to shit and dies. Badly.
It’s a brutal God that pours down rain for three years on the fat and wealthy population, perhaps guilty of pride due to the thriving sugarcane market. So rain it is! After rivers of black water, the economy is on the brink of collapse, and the faith of the sect is almost lost. In this bountiful rain, the protagonist finds solace because he no longer has to hide.
Then she arrives. White. No, that isn’t her name but the color defining her purity. Sweet and perfect Beth, with her arrival, stops the deluge and calms the divine wrath. The protagonist’s delirium increases with the violent death of his parents and his magnetic attraction to Beth, who is quickly sanctified by the entire community. God appears to him, sending him a vision of His design: He wants Euchrid to be His Sword, plunging him into an increasingly distorted and seemingly senseless tangle of hallucinations. Nick Cave throws us left and right, and with a sick, drugged, drunken prose, utterly distressing, he leads us to the dramatic finale that mirrors the initial scene to close the circle. It’s a long ballad in which it’s beautiful to get lost for a read that is not easy but satisfying and different from the usual.
No doubt about it, Secco, you’ve given me another gem and yet another excuse to write about it here, in my favorite place.
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