The Boys Who Stole the Funeral (1980) is a verse novel by Australian writer Les Murray.
[1] The novel consists of a sequence of 140 sonnets, many of which had been previously published in newspapers, literary journals, and poetry anthologies.
[2] The novel tells the story of how two young men steal the body of an old friend from a city undertaker in order to give their friend the rural burial he so desired.
After its initial publication in Australia by Angus and Robertson in 1980,[3] the novel was reprinted by Angus and Robertson in 1982 and then published as follows: A sound recording of the novel was created in 1985 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The lines are chiselled with care, the book sculptured with grace; narrative and dialogue fuse into a poetic whole, the poetic sensibility informs all: the darting phrase, the naked insight.