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Vernon God Little
 
 
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Vernon God Little (School & Library Binding)

by D. B. C. Pierre (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (113 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • School & Library Binding: 277 pages
  • Publisher: Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval (Jun 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1417637048
  • ISBN-13: 978-1417637041
  • Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 14 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (113 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

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.

Review

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.
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Customer Reviews

113 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
 (14)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (113 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars U . S . EH???, 14 Jan 2003
By MR A HEPWORTH (Castleford, West Yorkshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vernon God Little (Hardcover)
I really couldn't wait to dive into this book. I admit I was a little giddy from all of those glowing comparisons I'd heard in the press: 'The Simpsons meet The Osbournes en route to Eminem," all of that tantalising praise seemed to make this book tailor-made for a contemporary Pop Culture Vulture like me.
I was expecting all the sharp Stateside wit of your average episode of Fraiser, but perhaps with swearing. Something fun but essentially throwaway. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a hard time.

The first difficulty I blundered across was the relentless voice of the main character, Vernon. This kid's language is hacked into harsh fragments of over-observed teen-speak; sometimes allegorical beyond the years of your average fifteen year old Mall-Rat. This was more like Henry Miller in 'Tropic of Cancer', but with an irksome Texan drawl.

I was then assaulted by the relentless introduction of the characters; a bloated band of widowed Harpies, a slimey selection of authority figures - all with disturbing ulterior motives, vacuous and unlikable fellow teens; all of these freaks were dealt out to me like a bad Poker hand. Oh, and did I mention that all of this was beset by the back-story of a shocking mass murder of sixteen schoolkids?
I wasn't enjoying myself at all. This was hard. This wasn't Homer Simpson saying: D'oh!

I read on, as the awful un-american events unfolded and became seedier and more hopeless. I began to sneer at the bleak nation that was so crudely mapped within the pages. I began to laugh at it.

I suppose that's where I sort of got it - acclimatized if you will. I was no longer on the side of slick, witty america and its throwaway one-liner, sanitized sit-com smugness. I was now snickering and smirking at the ludicrous land that poor Vernon Little was trapped in and was being savagely manipulated by.
I found the whole ghastly media circus, (ringmastered by the cartoonish 'Eulalio Ledesma' character) repulsive and quite hilarious. In the end I was enjoying myself, but I felt like I needed a good shower afterwards.

This is not the america I thought I knew, but I'm certain it's the america that most americans know - or would rather not know.
For that I would urge you to read this book. It's very horrible, it's very vulgar, it's very disturbing, it's very funny.

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39 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Vernon Genius Little, 24 Jun 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Vernon God Little (Hardcover)
This book, without a doubt is in my top 3 books of all time. Most times the narrative is a jumbled mess of stream of consciousness that constantly flips between the average internal dialogue of a 15yr old boy to that of a 40 yr old social psychologist with 2 PhDs in modern societal pressures and methods of alienation - especially when it comes to Vernon's observations of the people around him. Amazingly, the story does not suffer one bit from it. Even with the inconsistency in 1st person narrative, never once does Pierre skip a beat or make the reader feel lost. Even Vernon's vulgar language is welcome throughout - grounding the reader in the reality of whom is speaking. And even if you ignore all the obvious societal/psychological commentary, it's just a damn good story that made me laugh out loud numerous times. It has literally been years since I've connected so much with a character and yearned for him to have the storybook ending and for all the villains to get their comeuppance. It's been so long since I've cheered for the protagonist instead of wishing they'd drown in a vat of their own syrupy induced self-importance, morality, and wisdom. Vernon, plain and simple, is a scared kid who did what most scared kids would do but unfortunately always seemed to do it at the wrong times and with the wrong people watching. Finally (how appropriate), the ending is one of, if not the best, I've ever read. So often authors take you on such a great journey only to leave you lost in the middle of nowhere in the final chapter. Not Pierre. The emotional tug of war he takes the readers through in the final chapters is brilliantly written and emotionally evoking without being tacky or overly sentimental. It also managed to tie up loose ends that you didn't even know existed, or forgot about, in the most marvellous fashion. I'm going to be hard pressed to find a book that moves me as much as VGL did (and still does for that matter). The next author I pick up is going to have a very tough act to follow.
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41 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Barbecuing for Columbine, 19 Nov 2003
This review is from: Vernon God Little (Paperback)
DBC Pierre's Booker prize-winning novel of course cannot live up to the hype, though it is at times an exhilarating and funny read it can also be hackneyed and unappealing. Told in the wacky first-person narrative of American slacker kid Vernon Gregory Little, the novel's set in Martirio, Texas - the "barbecue sauce capital of the world" - and peopled by an hilarious cast of grotesques from the fast-food obsessed police detective Vaine Guerie with barbecue sauce dripping down her double chins to the TV-repair man come ace TV reporter Eulalio Ledesma looking to turn Death Row into "live" entertainment - well this is the Land of Opportunity, right? Our anti-hero is always in the wrong place at the wrong time and predictably, a Columbine-style massacre carried out by Vernon's best friend sees him take the rap. Though it's been compared to such classics as Catcher in the Rye, the author really doesn't make his scatterbrained protagonist loveable enough for the reader to actually care about and the big satirical themes skewering white-trash America, gun ownership and Big Brother type TV have been just about done to death before, if you'll excuse the Pierre-style pun. That's not to say Vernon God Little's a bad book since the author does have his own unique brand of shocking black humour and unlike his creation he seems to have been in the right place at the right time. So much so he's become some kind of pin-up boy for sections of the British literary establishment as rabid anti-Americanism is very, very relevant, so it's a fashionable piece of fiction without being a great one.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Vernon "Good enough to buy" Little
Vernon "God" Little tell the story of a 15 year old Texan boy who becomes the scapegoat of his home town. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Ms. D. F. Lloyd Payne

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
I'm amazed at the negative reviews for this book (although, of course, each to his own). I thought it was excellent - readable, funny, witty. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. S. Robinson

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read
I enjoyed this book. Its satyrical take on corrosive obsessions such as gossip and celebrity and its warm tone, which saves it from cynicism, is well done and engaging if a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. S. Burgess

5.0 out of 5 stars Why has no-one else reviewed this book?
I have never written a review, but seeing that no-one else had as yet rated this book I felt I must draw your attention to it. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Poppy Barrow

4.0 out of 5 stars Vern is innocent!
What do you do when your best friend has just murdered sixteen of the other kids in your class? You get persecuted by the small town where you've grown up the inhabitants of which... Read more
Published 4 months ago by E. Shaw

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, but I hate this book
I'm sorry but I hate this book. The writing style is annoying to read, the characters are unrealistic and all set your teeth on edge, and nothing feels real. Read more
Published 6 months ago by K. MacLauchlan

3.0 out of 5 stars Enough to keep you awake.
Compare and contrast Vernon Little and Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye), could prove a very interesting essay for all those keen students out there. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mark Dickens

4.0 out of 5 stars Quirky and off the wall
This unique and off the wall book won the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and tells the story of a young boy and his life after a mass murder in his hometown. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Ms. S. Saker Dimoline

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Read
Vernon Gregory Little, a typical Texan born boy whose life is turned upside down by some unfortunate events, that although do not have anything to do with him, have the 17 year... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mikyla Lois Richards

4.0 out of 5 stars An uneasy but rewarding read.
Vernon God Little is a truly original book; the depiction of the mass murder of sixteen high school students and the determination of the townsfolk and media to find a scapegoat... Read more
Published 13 months ago by L. Sparrow

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