Vernon God Little [Paperback]

If there's any justice, it is only a matter of time before the work of the curiously-named DBC Pierre becomes essential reading for anyone interested in cutting-edge writing today. Vernon God Little is a book that has a totally individual (and very quirky) identity, from a writer with a finger on the pulse of contemporary society (particularly its less comfortable aspects). Pierre is also a satirical writer in the vein of such talents as Terry Southern, and there is a manic quality to his work that makes the experience of reading him both disorienting and exhilarating. As a first novel, this is a remarkable achievement.

Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his hole-in-the-wall town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing (rather than the real culprit, a friend of Vernon's). Eulalio Ledesma is his particular nemesis, manipulating things so that Vernon becomes the fulcrum for the bizarre and vengeful impulses of the townspeople of Martirio. After a truly surrealistic set of events, Vernon finds himself heading for a fateful assignation in Mexico with the delectable Taylor Figueros (everyone in the book has names as odd as the author's).

By setting his novel in the barbecue-sauce capital of Central Texas, Pierre ensures that his narrative is going to be some distance from naturalistic writing. And as a scalpel-like satirical incision into the mores of contemporary America, reality TV and media hysteria, Vernon God Little often reads like a fractured modern-day take on such novels as John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The terrorist atrocity that flattens skyscrapers or turns a busy nightclub into a crater is typically described by eyewitnesses as "like a film" and by novelists as an event too improbable for fiction. It is some years since Philip Roth wrote in a famous essay about a reality that is "a kind of embarrassment to one's own meagre imagination". It is this reality, the one you couldn't make up if you tried, which only makes sense as an insane film, that is the subject of this utterly original first novel about an American teenager falsely accused of a high school massacre, put on trial by television, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Funnier than The Simpsons, closer to the knuckle than The Office, this is comic writing of the highest order. Pierre is a very clever and - quite possibly - extremely dangerous man. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Read Vernon God Little not only for its dangerous relevance, but for the coruscating wit and raw vitality of its voice...' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Part satire, part pathos, Vernon God Little engages on all levels - intellectual, visceral, emotional, comedic ... A remarkable first novel.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Thanks to his sharp send-up of contemporary America ... DBC Pierre ... is rightly named as the US's [sic] latest literary wunderkind.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Funny and breathtakingly stroppy.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Raw and vital, this novel, as Vernon so righteously says, 'fucken rocks'.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory Little is in trouble, and it has something to do with the recent massacre of 16 students at his high school. Soon, the quirky backwater of Martirio, barbecue capital of Texas, is flooded with wannabe CNN hacks, eager for a scapegoat.

DBC Pierre is working on his second novel. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

In a black and white world, everything in my room is fucken evidence against me. A haze of socks and underwear riddled with secret dreams. My computer has history to wipe from the drive, like the amputee sex pictures I printed for old Silas. Silas is a sick old puppy - don't even go there, really. I make a note to wipe the computer, or 'Perform Some Virtual Hygeine', as Mr Nuckles would say. My eyes crawl around the rest of my room. Last week's laundry sits in a pile by my bed, Mom's lingerie catalogue is under it; I have to return it to her room. And hope like hell she never tries to open page 67 or 68. You know how it is. Then there's my closet, with the Nike box in back. Inside are two joints and two hits of LSD.
Muddy light breaks through the gloom outside my window. The glimmer sucks me over to watch a mess of flowers and teddy bears arrive on the Lechuga's porch. Now it looks like Princess Debbie's place, or whoever the princess was who died. It's all just in a pile, still wrapped, so you know the Lechugas paid for it. Nobody else sent flowers for Max, that's the sadness of the thing.
I'm studying this whole tragedy routine, in back of my jellified brain. The Lechugas have to send themselves teddy-bears for instance. Know why? Because Max was an asshole. Saw-teeth of damnation I feel just thinking it, waiting for fiery hounds to unleash mastications and puke my fucken soul to hell. But at the same time, here's me with water in my eyes, for Max, for all my classmates. The truth is a corrosive thing. It's like everybody who used to cuss the dead, is now lining up to say what perfect angels of God they were. What I'm learning is the world laughs through its ass every day, then just lies double-time when shit goes down. I mean - what kind of fucken life is this? --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.