Death in Brunswick

by Boyd Oxlade

A cult hit later made into a film starring John Clarke, Sam Neill and Zoe Carides, Death in Brunswick is a classic Australian comedy.

Down on his luck and hard up for cash, Carl works in the kitchen of a seedy rock ‘n’ roll joint in ethnically diverse Brunswick. The bouncers and bosses terrify him, he’s desperately in love with a much younger Greek waitress, and to make matters worse his mother has come to stay with him.

Then a dead body turns up. He and his best mate, Dave, will have to do something about it, and fast—or it’s goodnight, Carl.

With a new introduction by Shane Maloney, author of the Murray Whelan crime thrillers and head honcho of the Brunswick Institute.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Classics, Novels, Audiobook, 20th Century, Crime

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Boyd John Michael Oxlade (May 8, 1943 - January 24, 2014) was an Australian author and screenwriter, best known for his novel Death in Brunswick, and the adapted screenplay, which he co-wrote.

Oxlade was born in Sydney, and received a Jesuit education in Ireland and at Xavier College in Melbourne, and then studied at Monash University.

Reviews

[Kaitlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Brunswick is much changed since Boyd Oxlade invoked its name as an ironic counterpoint to a more famous book, a more redolent setting. The factories are gone, the houses cost a small fortune, the pizza is thin-crust artisanal and only the faintest traces remain of the feminist graffiti. But scratch beneath the hipster bars and snazzy apartment blocks and you will find, not far below the surface, that Death in Brunswick still haunts the place - conniving, paranoid and laughing grimly up its sleeve." - Shane Maloney

Loved this book! Another great Australian Classic and loved that I'm reading it while living in the area. Shane Maloney sums up the area fantastically, and I truly do see snippets of this book hidden in its streets. It's a special feeling when you live in a city so rich with literature and stories.

[LuckyBao · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored this book, even more than the movie. The Brunswick within is instantly recognisable, even to someone that missed the full brunt of its industrial origins. Switching between Carl and Dave allowed for a much more interesting examination of multiculturalism, of a shifting Australia, and the competing roles of men and women.

Can I also give credit to the foreword? This is one of the few times (actually, it might be the one time) a foreword has energised me, and given something so wonderful to the novel ahead. Thank you Shane Maloney.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relic of the 80's and 90's era Australia that i grew up in, i was always going to enjoy this.
A darkly comic tale of a washed up cook whose life is a joke, this reminds of the inner city shitholes i used to haunt back in the day, before the cities got gentrified and all forms of fun were either banned or made too expensive.
I've got a feeling i watched the movie on VHS back in the day but my memory isn't great so maybe i'll have to hunt it down on DVD now.
Would recommend.

[B.J. Swann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A work of dark comic brilliance with memorable and believable characters, told with great precision and economy. Certain sections had me laughing out loud. The ending is somewhat lacklustre compared to that of the film, which was co-written by Oxlade, but in other respects the book is superior. Deadset Aussie classic.

[bookswithpaulette · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh it was ok

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boyd Oxlade's a one-hit wonder, as far as writing is concerned. He recently died, having almost completed his second novel, and it's a shame it won't see the light of day, because this one is a ripper.

Imagine something close to an examination of the outsider, a meditation on friendship, a crime story and a kitchen-sink recounting of the life of a chef and a gravedigger (both jobs the author had held, tellingly) and you're getting close.

It's mainly a fix-the-problem kind of book - there's several issues from love to more life-or-death matters - but there's always more to see. For me, I loved the eye for ennui exhibited here:

Carl wandered out into his back yard. It was a maze of overgrown native trees, grey-green spiny grevilleas and untidy ti-tree. Over all hung the cat's-piss smell of wattle. He found it terribly depressing. No wonder the early explorers succumbed to melancholy, surrounded by this sort of thing.

There's a lightness of touch here, with lots of deep, confessional observation hidden in the everyday. It's a quick read, but it feels like it'll stick around much longer.

The problem for me with this book is that I've seen the film version. It's impossible to separate the versions of Carl and Dave in the novel from those in the film - something this printing of the book seems to encourage, given the cover art. Thankfully, it's generally a positive pairing - with Dave's character, especially, you can see there's little John Clarke would've had to do to bring the fantastically earthy (Comrade!) Dave to life: what you read is what you got, at least on the silver screen. The character of Carl is a little more complex than Sam Neill's reading made apparent, particularly given developments later in the novel.

The thing that really jarred for me, though, is that the book has a much different ending. I won't give it away, but the film version ties things up very nicely; not so, here. Though I know that adapting for film means certain things have to be cut, there's some very nice ambiguity and examination of friendship (far beyond mateship) that takes place in the book which mean the text is superior. Though the film is dark, there's a blacker streak in the book, and it's truly grim watching Carl's trip from melancholy onwards.

This is a brief, sad and disturbingly funny book. It's a bit of a time capsule - the gentrification which Carl laments as being the preserve of doctors and lawyers has rolled on, and it's almost sweet to see his desire to get out of a Victorian terrace and into a crisp new flat, given the migration in the other direction is so popular now - and it presents a picture of an '80s rock Melbourne that appears so distant, now. The Divinyls and Birthday Party-styled hair, the novelty of multiculturalism, the continual intrusion of Australia's ockerish personality - all of these create a vivid, noisome picture of what the city used to be like.

It's a great place to visit. If you only know the film - and you liked it - then the book will, as ever, give you so much more. Spend an afternoon with Carl and Dave, ya mug.

[(Mark) EchoWolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A minor Australian classic. The movie of the book is also entertaining. It's an easy read about a couple of Aussie losers living in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, an inner city area now. One works as a cook and lives with his mother, and other digs graves (which comes in very handy) when there is an accidental death that they don't want anyone to know about. It's a colloquial comedy, and very entertaining to read if like that kind of thing, which I often do. The book was written back in the 1980s, well before the suburb of Brunswick became largely gentrified. At the time of the writing, it was still a somewhat common rough poor inner city lower class area full of football and beer and migrants and clubs, and a lot of the businesses were going broke. It was seedy in parts. The character portrayals are well written. I enjoyed this book.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable black comedy, about a couple of mates, a dead drug dealer and a religious mother, set in the suburbs of north Melbourne.

Not wanting to give anything away, don't read this book if you are easily offended, or have just eaten a pizza, as you will not want to eat one again.

The story moves at a rapid taste, and although it has a fairly simple story line, it is well written and very easy to read.

I loved it, and now want to find a DVD of the movie.

[Morgan Miller-Portales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the movie is, to this day, more widely known, ‘Death in Brunswick’, by Boyd Oxlade, is first and foremost a classic of 1980s Australian literature. Part of a larger initiative around reading Melbourne in literature, I came across this novel and decided to give it a go, having had no direct exposure to the movie prior. Published in 1987, Oxlade introduces us to two down-on-their-luck characters with Carl, who works in a seedy joint in ethnically-diverse Brunswick, and Dave, a gravedigger at Coburg Cemetery. With extremely colourful prose, a central ingredient to many Australian novels, and a touch of the macabre, both characters are plunged in a world of trouble following a murder. Beautifully paced, I soon became smitten with the motley depictions of 1980s Melbourne and found myself completely immersed in the story. Quite a pleasant find.

[Olly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This iconic Australian novel provides a bleak depiction of Melbourne in the late eighties, centred on the pub-rock scene. Despite being a tale of black-comedy, Oxlade also brilliantly integrates social satire of the novel’s milieu, including racism, sex, drugs and left-wing politics. Middle-aged and washed up Carl, a cook at a seedy Brunswick rock pub, is faced with a murder in his kitchen one night when he thought nothing else could go wrong in his life. The story unravels as best mate and grave-digger Dave, helps Carl hide the body and overcome his anxieties surrounding the unfortunate event. Not an incredibly long text, but gripping none the less. Highly recommended, and perfect to take to Weekender or as a casual read for a (slightly serious) laugh.

[Angeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

the nostalgia of sexism

[Pegaunimoose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Crude and rude but very readable. Very evocative of the time and place too- well written with such a dark ending!

[Niki E · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the descriptions of 1980s inner-northern Melbourne, and could visualise many locations. But really naive, unsophisticated writing, particularly the dialogue which had the feel of a high school attempt at a movie script. I remember my parents laughing hysterically at the film version, which stars John Clarke and Sam Neill, so I might hunt that out.

[A.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carl pretends to be younger than he is. He clings to the idea that he looks a bit like David Bowie. His seedy kitchen job is making food good enough to tick the license requirement of serving ‘a meal’ in a rock venue, but it isn’t haute cuisine.
Then his mother comes to live with him after a recent heart attack. She annoys him; she’s in his place and she keeps playing Mahler and asking him to make her a cuppa. She cleans the run down old terrace, hangs up her icons and starts muttering to him about wills and leaving him a bit of cash. She even wants him to go to mass with her and to change his name back to Charles.
[I swear the sister tried to poison her… but now she’s changed the will to give it all to Carl. Half each, lady… ffs.]
Ugh. How could his life get any worse?
But then he accidentally stabs the sacked kitchen hand when he comes back to have a go at Carl. As a joke, the bouncers told him Carl had got him sacked.
His good mate Dave is literally the guy you can call when you need to get rid of a body. But Carl does not appreciate that.
It’s a particularly bleak kind of Australian classic. Dripping with racism.
Carl is in love with a young Greek, he flirts with wearing make-up, Mahler, he starts seeing signs in everything… I don’t know - that’s all the obvious things I can think of as parallels with Death in Venice, but I read it a couple of years ago.
I love Dave’s wife, June. “I’m sick of this male bonding bullshit,” she declares.
3 stars

[Gavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining. "Down & out in Coburg & Brunswick" must have been the alternative title. A romp around the inner North that shows its age in parts. It isn't deep & meaningful, but neither does it pretend to be. An enjoyable quick read.

[Deborah Sheldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, quirky, filled with quintessentially Aussie slang.

[Duncan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seemed very real. Well worth reading.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great quirky read with exceptional descriptives of a bygone grunge era of 80s Melbourne! Shame Boyd didn’t write anything else, I’m ready for the next installment.

[Bill Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic indeed

[Donna Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read. Insightful and descriptive.

[Tony Bertram · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Australian classic. I do wish Thomas Mann could have had the opportunity to read this and learn how to write a book.

[Perry Middlemiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the mid-1980s Carl is a gormless thirty-seven year old working as a cook in a seedy, rundown rock-an’-roll club in Brunswick, in Melbourne’s inner-north. He’s got mother problems and, as the novel starts, he has, for some fathomless reason, invited her to come and stay with him at his run-down rental property. He is perpetually on the look-out for some easy dope or pills to get himself through the day, and he secretly longs for his mother to die so he can inherit her money. In the meantime he pilfers her medications when she isn’t looking. Carl has separated from his wife who, in classic Brunswick fashion, has left him for another woman and he now has to put up with his mother getting on his case about the two of them getting back together again. He can’t think of anything worse.
Carl has only one skill: he can cook decent food out of practically anything. And that’s a skill he needs to put into constant practice as the music venue continually messes up the food ordering, explaining to Carl that he’s only kept on due some quirk in the licensing rules which require food to be available if alcohol is served late at night.

To make matters worse Mustafa, Carl’s kitchen assistant and drug dealer, has been beaten up by the club’s bouncers and now isn’t coming into work. The bouncers then tell Carl that they don’t want drugs dealt on the premises – unless, of course, they are getting a substantial cut of the takings – and have told Mustafa that Carl dobbed him in.

And then Carl meets the lovely, and very, very young Sophie, who is working as a waitress in the club. He is immediately smitten and she reciprocates and Carl finally thinks things are starting to turn for the better.

That is, until Mustafa comes back to the club one night and confronts Carl in the kitchen. A fight ensues and somehow a kitchen knife ends up firmly stuck between Mustafa’s ribs. Exit Mustafa. But what to do about the body? Given what the bouncers have said, and his rather drug and alcohol laden history Carl has no desire to report the death to the police. Twenty years to life in prison does not sound appealing. So Carl does the only thing he can do: he stores Mustafa’s body in the freezer and contacts his one and only friend Dave for help. As it happens Dave is a gravedigger at the local cemetery and hatches a scheme to put Mustafa’s body in the bottom of a recently dug grave – the funeral is the next day - where it will be lost forever.

So we get to the one major comic set-piece of this novel: the burial in the graveyard. It’s a wonderfully comic piece of writing; full of dead-pan humour with moments of slapstick and gory and disgusting dead body jokes. I loved it. Unfortunately it’s really the only major piece in the book and, we really needed a few other such sequences to lift this novel from the so-so to a rating of excellent.

The novel was adapted into a film in 1990 from a script by Boyd Oxlade, featuring Sam Neill as Carl and John Clarke as Dave. Clarke is just fantastic in the role and raises the level of the burial sequence to very high levels indeed. It’s hard to think of anything else in Australian film that is funnier. It was almost as if the role was written for him.

And, yes, the book cover is by Chong who has depicted Dave, just as Clarke portrayed him, in a sort of “Australian Gothic” tableau.
R: 3.3/5.0

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-3.5 stars

I picked this up from my TBR on a whim for a trip to Melbourne. I'm glad to have read it, but didn't love all of it.

It's very blokey, and while no-one can like protagonist Carl, I enjoyed most of his story, and his friendship with his only friend grave digger Dave. I lived in Melbourne in the 80s when this story is set, and a lot of it rang true.

All the female characters are terrible. Stereotyped and cliched. Still I might try and track down the movie version to round out my experience.

Shane Maloney's introduction is excellent. But like all introductions should be read after the book.

[Urbaer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very quick read and there's some interesting stuff going on here, but it felt over all too soon. The interactions between Dave and Carl were far too limited and I would have liked to see more of them.

It contains racism, which I guess is to be expected of a book from that time and a fair bit of sexism. Though the racism and sexism are mostly Carl's, while Dave is a lot less so and supports his wife's feminism in the whole and likes how multicultural Brunswick is, so I guess from that perspective it's more modern than it first appears.

I dunno, might have to stew on it for a bit.

[David Browne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't stick with this because the writing was so poor. It doesn't surprise me that it was made into a film because it reads like a film treatment. There's virtually no characterisation just I did this, she did that. I know this is a "cult classic" and I can see how it appeals to some readers, but I expected more and was very disappointed when I finally picked it up.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death in Brunswick by Boyd Oxlade

A very dark comedic effort from Oxlade (his only novel). Far blacker than the film, this is an immensely sad but awfully funny book. It captures the time well and, at times, reads like "Bukowski does Brunswick".

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

[Emily Atkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I can see why this was ‘a thing’ in 1987, but I didn’t love it to be honest. It felt hammy and undercooked… and the ending was annoying. It’s a 2.5 star pass rounded up because it’s considered a classic.

[Andrew Einspruch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so much to my taste.

[Madison James]

Lit novel but main character is a bit of a geezer

[Jd · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining Melbourne literary icon