Page 45 Review by Stephen
Be careful what you mutter in the sequestered confines of your living room, sweet readers, for there is a medical practitioner on the loose. He is high of brow and long of ‘tache, and as the sun doth surely set ’cross yonder blood-dimmed sky, a silhouette rides into town on a flea-bitten nag not long for the knacker’s yard. His name is Nick Cave M.D., and he is not above making house calls.
“Oooh! Me leg’s playing up again…”
“Poor thing…”
*DING DONG*
“Who could that be, at this hour? Doctor Cave! Oh, Lord ‘elp us…”
“God be with you, Madam… My crow tells me that there is an ailment in this house.. some poor soul a-sufferin’ and a-singing a sad song of woe… not unlike Lazarus.”
Lazarus: best running gag in the book, and Krent Able has nailed Saint Nick’s southern-gothic drawl. From the pages of the The Stool Pigeon, a free music rag I confess I’ve never read, stagger your favourite rock and pop stars, utterly desecrated for your delectation. If you have the stomach for it.
For this is far cruder than anything currently leaking from some ruptured oil tanker, although no animals were harmed in the making of these vile comic shorts – only within them. There’s Lou Reed having non-consensual monkey sex for a start. I’ve not seen so many vulvae since decorating my last boarding school study wall. (It was encouraged, by both parents and teachers alike; I am shitting you not.) On one page President Obama is using a winged one cloned from the DNA of Lady Gaga to communicate with Kayne West. Let us be plain: if the Venn Diagram depicting your sense of humour does not contain genitalia (male, female, animal, alien), excrement, dismemberment, bestiality, arseholes and body fluids of all flavours known to man, then this book is neither for you nor – I would suggest – your parents.
Victims include Iggy Pop, 20 Cent, Timberlake, Lily Allen, Brian Wilson, Pete Doherty, Kraftwerk and Morrissey whose hearing-impaired chauffeur takes him not, as requested, to see the film Avatar, but to an enthusiastically run and well weaponised abattoir.
