Novels

Wonderboy (1996)

In the middle of the night the spirits are scheming. Somewhere between dream and sleep Charles Mann and his son Max find themselves thrust into a land where angels can shake off demons, miracles challenge logic, and the beautiful Caitlin gives lessons in the art of living well.
As Charles wrestles with ghosts past and present, new love and old on an odyssey to unravel the truth about his own father, ten-year-old Max discovers that the real stuff of life is the experience itself.
'Wonderboy' is a captivating journey into the extraordinary possibilities of everyday life.
"Wonderboy is a clever first novel with promise of more to come"
The Canberra Times
Stay Away From Lightning Girl (1999)

But if he can explain his life to Maigret, the Lucky-Strike smoking, whisky-drinking divine umpire of the afterlife...if he can explain about lightning girl and her sexy drugged up sister, about love and failure and hurt and fear, and about a talking dog called Biscuit...if only he can tell the story of a heart in conflict with itself, he might just be allowed to return to the sweet melancholy that is life.
Bittersweet, tender and funny, Stephen's second novel is a whimsical tale about the mysteries of the human soul.
"a gentle tale of love that's hard to resist"
Sun Herald
What the papers have said:
“Alongside Nick Cave and Tim Rogers, I would nominate Stephen Cummings. He is easily one of our great storytellers, capable of creating lives in miniature.”
-Bernard Zuel, The Sydney Morning Herald
“Apart from Paul Kelly, no other Australian solo artist has managed to sustain a recording and performing career at such a high level of artistry for as long as Stephen Cummings.”
-Shaun Carney, The Age
“Debonair, romantic and sensitive, Cummings owns a voice that allows vulnerable yearning qualities as much space as an authoritative voice of experience.”
-Lauren Zoric, Rolling Stone
“...in a year rich in fine albums from singer-songwriters as diverse as Bob Dylan, Ron Sexsmith and Lucinda Williams, this is one of the finest.”
-Larry Schwratz, The Sunday Age
SPACE TRAVEL
“by Iain Shedden - The Australian, 25 August 2007 ONE wee detail that isn't mentioned on
•he cover of Stephen Cummings's first DVD is that the lovely Forum Theatre in Melbourne where the live performance takes place -- and where the singer used to watch Viking movies when he was wagging school, he tells us -- is occupied only by him, two fellow musicians and the technical crew. Did he forget to invite the public? Perhaps he did ask and they stayed home to watch RockWiz. No, it must be because the grand old theatre suits Cummings's melancholic, delicately textured love songs. This is a great show -- well recorded, too -- from one of Melbourne's most consistent songwriters, but it's perverse that his ungainly, endearing storytelling between songs is directed only at, as he says, the cosmos. With bassist Bill McDonald and guitarist Billy Miller he traverses his career from Sports frontman in the late 1970s (Don't Throw Stones, Who Listens to the Radio?) through to newer solo material such as Little Girl on a Sofa and I Need You Tonight. Cummings is in fine voice and the three musos blend exquisitely on the 20 songs. They deserve a round of applause. Cummings's 13th solo album, Space Travel, features the aforementioned Little Girl on a Sofa, a gentle, nostalgic love song with Beach Boys harmonies, alongside 10 others that plunder gospel and soul (I Remember), swampy rock'n'roll (Hey Kitty Kitty!) and acoustic folk (It's Not Me, It's You!). The strings, strum and repetitive cycle of No Stopping echo the Blue Nile, but the song is no less impressive for that. Indeed, everything here has a spring in its step, augmented by Cummings's regular collaborators McDonald and Miller, the Luscombe brothers and Shane O'Mara. Clearly he's loving it, even if, as he says on Who Wants to Buy a Broken Heart?, "falling in love, that's not for me". A bit of poetic licence there, perhaps.
“Space Travel by Michael Dwyer - The Age, 31 August 2007 As a career musician, Stephen Cummings gave up linear progress years ago. His last four or five albums have just sort of appeared. Songs accumulated under his sofa cushions and fingernails, while his circling writer's mind played tricks with past, present and fiction. Space Travel is strewn with dreamlike flashback and stocktaking songs. "This happened years ago," he confides at the end of Little Girl On A Sofa - the girl whose face, we're encouraged to imagine, adorns the album cover. Cummings also appears as his '70s self on the back: the smouldering Sports singer in a floral shirt and a backstage smirk that suggests that he thinks he's going to live forever. He gently mocks that delusion in I Remember, From The Day I Was Born and Hurry, Hurry And Let's Go, powerful songs of self-evaluation that strive for meaning with the sad-eyed humour of middle age - and the same unique, oddly impulsive phrasing of his youth. Stylistically he makes spirited visits to Tennessee and Tijuana but ringing and lilting acoustic pop ballads remain Cummings' anchor as his mind wanders on through space.
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“Some Background. Formed the ledgendary rockabilly band, The Pelaco Brothers in 1974.
• Started The Sports in 1976. Recorded the Fair Game EP and received rave reviews in NME - the first Australian independent release to do so.
• The Sports signed with Mushroom and Stiff in the UK.
• Toured with Graham Parker, Elvis Costello, the Buzzcocks and Blondie.
• Scored a Top 40 hit in the US with 'Who Listens to the Radio?'
• Signed with Arista in the US.
• Disbanded The Sports and started his solo career in 1983. First solo hit, "Gymnasium".
• ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary album in 1990.
• Recorded 15 solo albums.