I had seen the cover from a distance on the Readings website and thought the spotted portion was a red dice- boy was I wrong! I don't feel bothered by it, but I thought the fact that the book is by Nick Cave would have been enough to draw people to it. Still, if the book is as sexually confronting as it sounds, the cover is indeed an adequate reflection of what goes on inside its pages, so no one can say they weren't warned!

As a bookseller in a shopping strip that is a bit more 'family' than 'street' I'm not sure how this will go in the window - if at all. Let alone on the general fiction new release table near the door where the mums, dads and grandmothers, who regularly buy books about how to boost the self-esteem of their female children wander past to get to the kids section. I agree with Kathy - the book would have sold regardless of what was on the cover and perhaps now may not sell to some female fans of Nick. I guess it is context - if the book is being sold as porn then the cover is fitting. But it is being sold as general fiction in bookshops in shopping strips all over the country.

I'm bothered by it. I was never a cultural studies student but I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that it invites mental penetration; it feels violent to me. Of course, it's a book about sex and violence - but we have many less literal ways of representing those subjects. (As an aside, the UK edition is literal, and hopeless, in a very different way).

I can't help but think that if Windsor Smith were using this to sell shoes (or if Bonds were using it to sell undies), the advertising standards board would have something to say about it.

Is it any different than a horror dvd cover? You won't see Video Ezy plastering huge posters of 'Let sleeping corpses Lie'across their windows. Or any of oriental blood and tits flicks. Why we get so precious about a book cover is beyond me! As much as some punters refer to it as 'General Fiction' ther e is a huge gaping hole (pardon the visual ref) between Jodi Picoult and Nick Cave in terms of potential store exposure. And somebody please explain to me how a picture of a womans crotch could lower a childs self esteem? Regards Hettie (love a nice Vag) Johnston

Way to use a pseudonym, Hetty!

You don't think the constant use of women's bodies to sell stuff diminishes a woman's self-esteem? Ask your daughter in five or six years and she'll tell you.

Hetty - given the discussion I think it would be fair to actually use a pseudonym that is correctly gendered.

I do think the cover of a general release novel is different to a horror dvd cover, don't you?

I would say that I think the UK and the US covers are pretty dreadful, and I can certainly see why Text wanted another cover.

Me again. The use of the name of the rabid Hetty Johnson does actually point out a problem in discussing these kind of things. That is, if a woman has a problem with a cover like this she is prudish. Full stop. It's as if reservations about an image such as this (beautiful) Polly Borland photograph on the cover of the Cave novel can't be a conversation can't be about commodification and consumerism.

It seems to me that the interesting question might be to what extent is it consistent with the kind of imagery found in Cave's work more generally as Kathy's original comment intimates? The darkness of his themes regarding death, sex, sin, revenge etc exposes a dark underbelly, return of the repressed etc., while also clearly being a strong creative source for Cave. Part of its point is to disturb modern liberal sensibilities, and I guess it will also butt up against left liberal or feminist ones at times. Its an enterprise that is both risky and productive but it also contains certain limits that are more exposed once the thing is reduced and commodified as a book cover(?)

Sophie I think Gary nails it. Its all about context. Its not a Chiko ad on a billboard. My point regarding the Horror titles is that they don't sell a lot therefore they are very unlikely to be given mass exposure as you suggest. You could argue some of the sexually violent scenarios concocted in Nick Caves lyrics are far more confronting: I stuck a six inch gold blade inside the head of a girl she: lying through her teeth him: lying on his back hands of this one,hands off she cried grinning at me from hip to hip hands off, pretty baby, tough blood then so soft to slip ooohh yeah I stuck a six inch gold blade in the head of a girl sharks fun slices suger-bed slices that pretty red-head I love you! now me! I love you! laughter, laughter oh baby, those skinny girls, they're so quick to murder ooohhh yeah. Shake it baby, c'mon, shake, shake it baby

One thing's for sure- all this talk has made me want to put on Murder Ballads and drink a bottle of red! And it's only noon...

I think for me the 'context' isn't the relationship between the cover and what is written inside, but the cover and where it will sit (and if Jodi Piccoult does have a new release out in August then it will be sitting beside Jodi's book) in a shop, the degree of merchandising that will occur along with the book's release and basically 'why use that cover when they will sell the book regardless'. because they can? probably. thanks soph for posting it! the boundaries appear to be blurry and ooh soo cool/contemporary/uber rock n roll/hotel rooms but in reality the boundaries aren't blurry. it is using a headless woman's vagina to promote a book. why when it isn't porn? when he is possibly trying to do more than (to quote garry) 'disturb modern liberal sensibilities'.

The new Nick Cave book cover eh? It is certainly one that will get attention, but I tend to agree with Sophie's concerns. Personally I think UK cover has a subtler connection to the actual contents of the book, which I am reading now. In different ways though both the Australia and UK covers are appropriate to the sex-obsessed content, that's for sure. Although maybe the image here in Oz is too satisfied with simple titillation and shock and needs, at the very least, an additional element? Then again there's a strong streak of pulp nastiness that Cave draws from in the work, so in many ways the cover is just a modern update on the raunchy, cleavage-heavy pulp books of yore. And therefore appropriate. I'd love to know who designed the cover here and who the publishing individual or deciding group were? I ask because I would not be surprised if they were all women, which makes for a strange split in what the hell they believe/think. In some ways it reminds me of the fashion magazines, run by women, propogating paedophilic images of anorexic young girls. How do they reconcile themselves to that work when it is operating at its basest level? Do they care? Is irony the last refuge of the scoundrel, as we've always suspected? It also interests me that we are now in some kind of weird, 'post feminist' era when you'd wonder if feminism had ever happened in terms of advertising images, entertainment and marketing - the sheer aggression of it all today blows me out. People seem to relish the opportunity to live on the surface of their desires and to celebrate it as a freedom, be they male or female. Has capitalism triumphed over us so completely? And if these are the kind of questions the Bunny Munro cover makes me ask, does that mean it actually works since it pushes these debates into hard focus in some way? I dunno. Sometimes I see so much around me it runs off my back like frigging water. Maybe that's what is the matter with us most of the time.

If you read the book it is perfectly appropriate. It is all about a guy who sexualises women. That is the point. I think it is great.

PS I reckon you should shrink-wrap Jodi Picoult's book and the Nick Cave. That would be fun.

@Krissy: Do you think Nick Cave is taking a critical view of this man who sexualises women (I don't know; I haven't read the book)? If he's taking a critical view, do you think that this cover somehow undermines whatever his message might be?

It doesn't bother me. It's racy, risque, a little tasteless and attention-grabbing, but I think that may be the point. A cover like this may attract fans of Nick's music, who might not have otherwise bothered invest the time in reading his books.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether or not Nick/his cover takes a high moral stance. It's not running for political office-- it's just a story. Please tell me we haven't lost the ability to be confronted and challenged by different perspectives and takes on the human experience.

Cool. That Kirsten Reed has balls. - immediately makes one think of a gender swap on the cover and how fun that would be in a pair of pink panties. I am being flippant I know, but I can't answer the question as I am only half way through the book - and loving it!

Having read (and thoroughly enjoyed) the book, I think the cover image has captured the essence of the story perfectly. (It may, if anything, be a tad too obvious.) Bunny Munro is slave to the vagina. What's on that cover is pretty much all he sees and all that motivates him. Mental penetration? This character's all about mental penetration - any penetration, for that matter. Tasteless cover? Maybe, but so is the character of Bunny Munro. It captures the book perfectly. I would suggest that if you find the cover confronting, off-putting and not to your liking then you're probably not going to like the novel. And in that respect, this cover may have nailed it perfectly. Bunny Munro's sole focus on the vagina is possibly his ultimate undoing - I can only hope that readers can get beyond their focus on the one on the cover enough to enjoy the writing inside.

@kirsten I don't think we've (or I've) lost the ability to be confronted and challenged by different perspectives and takes on the human experience. I think I'm saying that a cover like that is an all too familiar perspective and take on both the use of images of women, and of cover design.

I haven't read the novel, so I take the point several of you have made that it might fit the book perfectly.

@Deborah - if I was to understand Pip's comments she was saying, as you are, that as a bookseller she also hopes that that readers can get beyond their focus on the cover enough to enjoy the writing inside. I think she's concerned they wont.

Thanks all, for your comments on this post. I've found it interesting.

What bothers me about the cover are the elements of objectification. I'm not however offended or even shocked by its sexual explicitness. I realise that these two things are not always separable but I think this distinction is an important one to make (particularly re: argument of being prudish). My gripe with the cover comes from, as you say, the passivity and vulnerability. I don't however have a problem with sexually confronting images being used as book covers. I think we have to be careful of taking the line 'what belongs on a cover vs what doesn't', because ultimately we want designers to take risks and challenge us.

I fully understand how Jess and Sophie see the cover as a passive and vulnerable image, even one "that invites imagined violation". The same thoughts flashed through my mind at first, but immediately behind was another thought: that this women is in a safe environment with a lover that she trusts deeply and they are about to have consensual sex or have just had consensual sex.

I haven't read the novel yet, but in a way I think it's irrelevant to the politics of the cover. It might not be irrelevant to the cover itself, which, going on what some others say, fits the story very well and is appropriate. But the cover, to me, is yet another in a long line of reductive images of women. Just because it's on a book cover doesn't make it less retrogressive. Does a book have to have a cover like that to sell? Of course not. Some imagination could have gone into the design instead.

@Simon. How exactly do you know that this woman is in a safe environment? What about this image suggests that this woman is with someone she trusts deeply? There is no way we can know that, just as we cannot know what immediately sprang to my mind, that is is in fact someone very young in this image. And there is the central problem with this cover. Without reading this novel and constructing a context for it, the cover is merely an image of the penetrability of the female body. And in a social context, where women's bodies are objectified in advertising and for entertainment, this cover just reiterates the normalising of such a practice. I am quite surprised at Text Publishing though for pulling such a cheap stunt, doesn't speak highly for their faith in the writing of this book!

I am very curious to hear if people who object to this cover would also object to the cover of another book published by Text: http://www.textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/in-my-skin/ Notice how the cover for the new edition is very different from the earlier one. The designer discussed the change in an article in Meanjin last year.

I suspect what Simon was doing was saying that without context either the "she is vulnerable" image or the "she is in a safe place" image are just as likely. We don't know, and while we can put our own interpretation on it, what we actually have is a woman in her undies lying on a bed. It's a very sexual and risqué image, but the shot itself does not suggest violence. I'll admit that the excessive use of red suggests certain violent imagery, but it also suggests sexual imagery. I think the question the publishers need to ask, though, is a much more financial one. Are the sales that they will get from this cover make up for the sales that they will lose from the fact that this book won't be on prominent display in certain stores?

@Rob. Yes, that was the point I was trying to make. As to whether the cover would generate or discourage sales, I guess that's the question a designer/publisher would have to decide for every book cover.

Well. To be totally honest: what the cover instantly reminded me of is Courbet's painting (totally NSFW, unless you work someplace where Art History totally sublimates the rudeness out of pronography) . And also a bit of the skinny girls in knickers gracing the covers of Houellebecq's not very good novels. It's the knickers that offend me, actually. They're like a pictorial euphemism, and that equals kitsch. I don't imagine the protagonist of the novel thinks about vaginas neatly packaged in underpants. The Courbet painting abjures ktisch, but then, Nick Cave has always flirted with it, or at least with camp.

I agree with Laura that the knickers are problematic - and of course nobody has pubic hair anymore... interesting to compare this cover to 'wetlands' where the pubs went for a vag-like fruit image ... an avocado I think.) I wouldn't want to read either book on public transport ...

It's not an image in the abstract but one that graces the front of a book by an artist, performer, writer, musician, curator with a long-standing set of interests around sex, death, obsession etc. You might even say his characters, stage persona, narratives, and associated video and performances often involve a kind of male perspective that people might find disturbing at whatever level for whatever reason. The cover has been commissioned by a publisher with a history in producing certain kind of books situated in a particular segment of the market (not the mass market). One presumes that some thought went into the cover design/selection with regard to Cave, the novel and the market but was not a decision governed by the bottom line alone. At one level the idea that this objectifies women is pretty uncontentious if a bit uninteresting. The problem is that it doesn't begin to explain anything about this image, except in the abstract, and its relation to the novel, the artist, and the actual market relations operating here.

My first thought was that this cover image was intended to shock the "grey suited norms" or whoever the straw men are who people like Nick Cave tilt against these days.

My second thought was that it was a boring, obvious cover that - having read this comments thread for a description of the book - is far too literal, to the discredit of the designer, I suppose.

It just comes across as "fnar fnar', know what I mean?

@ Sophie, I was directing my comment at the sentiments that the cover and content of the book should be morally upstanding, (which I felt bordered on politically correct sensorship), not at people in this thread generally (sorry I didn't make that more clear). I was just thinking that kind of sleazy character might warrant kind of a sleazy cover...

Well, well, what an interesting debate... The further I get into reading The Death of Bunny Munro the more I feel like qualifying my earlier comments. I now think the Australian edition has the best of the covers in any country, and that it is certainly the truest representation of the contents within Nick Cave's novel. For that reason alone, you can't say it's just a cheap stunt. In a way it's as honest a cover as you will get. That said I'm not sure I buy the line about the woman being "in a safe place", although she must have been to allow the image to be taken. I don't buy that line because the question then becomes how does that image appeal in a new context, how is it used? In a way we are arguing across a spectrum and it's the book itself as an entire experience - looked at, picked up and read - that finally makes its own vindiacting argument. Still, I can't remember the last time I saw a discussion like this. Best watch out Kevin Rudd doesn't pop in to fire off as salvo now as well!

i love it... and you guys think too much.

As an art director/designer living in NYC, I've pre-ordered the Australian edition on the strength of its cover design which, visually speaking, is infinitely more striking than either its UK or stateside counterparts. Ten years from now, I know which edition will command the higher prices on eBay...

I'm not bothered by it at all. If Nick Cave were a homosexual man, no intellectual would batter an eyelid about such a cover. I don't get offended when Dennis Cooper has obscure pictures of decaying nude boys on his book cover, so why have a go at Nick. If anything I'm quite bored with all these intellectuals writing books about pornography and transgressive bullshit. The intelligent leftist classes are so caught up with their respective sexual functions, we really are turning back to the Roman orgy era of cultural dhiarrea.

Personally I'd find a photograph of Sir Nick in full rockstar kit holding the hand of his twin sonx whilst leading them towards Fountain Gate Shopping centre more poignant and meaningful that the typical 'transgressive' or 'indie' fluffy-childhood-rape fantasy imagery that is the norm for any modern 'edge' culture.

But what do I know? I'm just another internerd noodnick like the rest. My reactionary bleh is a potent as posting on a bloody blog!

I don't think anyone has mentioned that the photo comes from Polly Borlands series of shots of a women called Bunny from 2005-05. Once again Nick is just giving his friends a helping hand.

I find this controversy hilarious, especially since the content of Cave's novel criticizes the objectifying personality and ends on a note of hope for change. Don't judge a book by it's cover. Regardless, the cover is relevant to portray its ghastly contents--the thoughts of such a lost man and descriptions of all of the horrible things he does to the people around him.