And the Ass Saw the Angel

Lore & Background

The origin of And the Ass Saw the Angel was an unfilmed screenplay by Cave and Evan English titled Swampland. When the film project fell through, Cave expanded the script into a novel. Cave's essay The Flesh Made Word, written for a BBC Radio 3 broadcast in 1996, includes his recollection of writing the novel: in 1985 he went to live in Berlin, where he locked himself in a room in Kreuzberg for three years to write it. The story is about a mad, hermetic mute boy called Euchrid Eucrow, who, having been denied speech, eventually explodes in a catharsis of rage and brings to its knees the religious community in which he lives. The novel is told through Euchrid's silent Southern drawl, written in eye dialect, a mongrel language part Biblical, part Deep South dialect, part gutter slang.

Reader's Guide

And the Ass Saw the Angel tells the story of Euchrid Eucrow, a mute born to an abusive drunken mother and a father obsessed with animal torture and building dangerous traps. The family live in a valley of fanatically religious Ukulites, where they are shunned. Euchrid's mental breakdown includes horrific angelic visions, and the story builds toward Euchrid exacting terrible vengeance on the people who have made him suffer. Major themes include man's inhumanity to man and the innate ability to fear what one does not understand. The novel was re-published in 2003 by 2.13.61, and a luxury collector's edition was released in summer 2007 by Black Spring Press. Cave's second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, was published in September 2009. In 2009, Nick Cave: The Exhibition toured nationally in Australia, displaying original lyrics, notebooks, artwork, photography, books, and objects from Cave's library, including the original manuscript of And the Ass Saw the Angel.

Did You Know?

• The novel originated from an unfilmed screenplay titled Swampland, co-written by Nick Cave and Evan English.
• The title is a quotation from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 22, Verses 23-31.
• Cave wrote the novel over three years while living in a room in Kreuzberg, Berlin.
• The protagonist Euchrid Eucrow is a mute boy who communicates in a silent Southern drawl rendered in eye dialect.

From Screenplay to Novel: The Berlin Genesis

The novel's roots stretch back to an unfilmed screenplay called Swampland, co-written by Cave and Evan English. A song bearing that same title appeared on The Birthday Party's 1983 Mutiny! EP, hinting at the project's early life. When the film never materialized, Cave transformed the script into a full-length novel. In 1985 he relocated to Berlin and, as he later recalled in his 1996 BBC Radio 3 essay "The Flesh Made Word," locked himself in a Kreuzberg room for three years to write. The result centered on Euchrid Eucrow, a mute boy whose denied speech eventually erupts into rage against the religious community surrounding him. Cave described the prose as a "hyper-poetic thought-speak" blending Biblical cadence, Deep South dialect, and gutter slang into what he called a mongrel language. He saw Euchrid as a figure of the blocked artist, internalized imagination curdling into madness, and as a kind of Jesus struck dumb. Throughout the narrative, God reportedly loads the boy with what Cave termed "hate inspiration straight from God," setting the stage for the novel's devastating climax.

A Fractured Voice: Structure and Story

The narrative follows Euchrid Eucrow, a mute child born to a drunken, abusive mother and a father fixated on animal cruelty and the construction of lethal traps. The family dwells in a valley dominated by the Ukulites, a fanatically religious community that shuns them. As Euchrid's mental state deteriorates, he is haunted by horrifying angelic visions, and the plot escalates toward his terrible vengeance against those who tormented him. Structurally, the novel is a layered experiment. In a BOMB magazine interview, Cave explained that the book contains multiple voices: Euchrid's first-person account, a third-person authorial perspective, and Biblical quotations that are sometimes genuine and sometimes fabricated. A lengthy prologue, devoid of action, presents documentary material, poetry, maps, and charts in brief chapters before the story proper begins. Afterward, the narrative oscillates between the narrator's objective truth and Euchrid's delusional one, culminating in a final section that is essentially his unbroken monologue driving toward the climax. The entire text is rendered in a silent Southern drawl, transcribed through eye dialect.

Gothic Faith and the Beauty of Ugliness

Set in the American South with a Southern Gothic atmosphere, the novel has drawn favorable critical comparisons to William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Its title comes from Numbers 22:23, where Balaam's donkey perceives the angel of the Lord while its rider does not, and Biblical language saturates the text. A central preoccupation is humanity's cruelty toward those it cannot comprehend. Euchrid is perpetually besieged by a community that reads his difference as a threat. The character Beth, and to a lesser degree her mother, are among the few who perceive something beyond a "dumb beast" in him. A fascinating transference operates here: the Ukulites interpret Beth's own strangeness as evidence of the divine, while Beth herself regards Euchrid as godly. Cave resisted reading the book as purely a catalogue of horror. In a conversation with director Lindzee Smith, he insisted the novel also concerns innocence and the beauty embedded in what the world labels ugly, pointing to Beth as an idealized figure of youth and purity viewed through Euchrid's obsessive gaze. The early Bad Seeds albums—From Her to Eternity, The Firstborn Is Dead, and Your Funeral... My Trial—extend the same thematic territory in song form.

Editions, Exhibitions, and the Life of the Book

First published in 1989 by Black Spring Press in the United Kingdom and HarperCollins in the United States, the novel has enjoyed a long publishing life. A Penguin paperback followed in 1990, and subsequent editions appeared in 1992, 2001, and 2003 (the latter through Cave's own imprint, 2.13.61). In the summer of 2007, Black Spring Press issued a luxury collector's edition, and a 2009 Australian Penguin printing brought the text to a new readership. Beyond print, the novel has had a rich performative and visual life. Cave gave numerous public readings before and after publication, sometimes joined by musicians. Four chapters—"Mah Sanctum," "Lamentation," "One Autumn," and "Animal Static"—were released as a bonus 12-inch single accompanying the Tender Prey album, and Mute Records later issued those same passages on CD in 1998, scored with music by Mick Harvey and Ed Clayton-Jones. In 2009, "Nick Cave: The Exhibition" toured Australia, displaying original lyrics, notebooks, artwork, and objects from Cave's library, and prominently featured the original manuscript of And the Ass Saw the Angel. The novel remains the first of two, with The Death of Bunny Munro following in September 2009.

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