BOY ON FIRE: The Young Nick Cave MARK MORDUE
The first volume of the long-awaited, near-mythical biography of Nick Cave, by award-winning writer, Mark Mordue.
A deeply beautiful, profound, profane and poetic biography of the early
formative years of the dark prince of Australian rock ‘n’ roll, Boy on Fire is
Nick Cave’s creation story. This is the story of the artist first as a boy, then
as a young man. A deeply insightful work which charts his family, friends,
influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, it reveals how Nick Cave shaped
himself into the extraordinary artist he would become.
As well as a powerfully compelling biography of a singular, uncompromising
artist, Boy on Fire is also a fascinating social and cultural biography, a vivid
and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark river
and ghost gums of Wangaratta, to the nascent punk scene which hit staid
1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb, right through to the torn wallpaper,
sticky carpet and the manic, wild energy of nights at the Crystal Ballroom.
A passion project nearly a decade in the making, Boy on Fire is one of the
most eagerly anticipated Australian music biographies, it is also a labour of
love for its writer Mark Mordue. With unprecedented access to Nick, his
family, friends, and fellow musicians, and featuring never-before seen early
photographs, Mordue has accomplished a stunning work of biographical
achievement, as befitting its legendary subject
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Mordue is an Australian writer, journalist and editor. He is a
co-winner of the 2014 Peter Blazey Fellowship, which recognises an
outstanding manuscript in the fields of biography, autobiography or life
writing. His work has been published in Interview, Madison, Speak, The
Nation and Salon, as well as Rolling Stone, Vogue, GQ, The Australian,
and The Sydney Morning Herald. Mark was the winner of a 1992 Human
Rights Media Award and the 2010 Pascall Prize for Critical Writing. From
1992 to 1997, he was the founding editor of Australia’s leading pop
culture magazine, Australian Style. His poetry, fiction, essays and
memoir work have appeared in literary journals such as HEAT, Meanjin,
Griffith Review and Overland in Australia.
Boy on Fire by Mark Mordue |Published: 19 September 2020 Imprint: 4th Estate | Format: Hardback | RRP: $39.99 | ISBN: 9781460759646 | eBook available
