Vernon God Little - A 21st Century Comedy in The Presence Of Death. [Paperback]

D. B. C. Pierre (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Faber and Faber; First Edition edition (January 1, 2003)
• ISBN-10: 0571215165
• ISBN-13: 978-0571216420
• ASIN: B001KRULAG
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,420,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars All Voice, November 17, 2003

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vernon God Little (Man Booker Prize) (Hardcover)

The strength of DBC Pierre's award-winning novel is in the voice of its narrator, Vernon Gregory Little, a fifteen year old oddball kid from Texas whose best friend Jesus went on a shooting rampage at school. Because Jesus killed himself at the scene, there's no one to take legal and emotional blame for the tragedy, so the police haul Vernon into the station for questioning. Through a series of mistakes and an adolescent distrust of authority, Vernon looks more and more guilty despite not being at the scene until after the massacre. Dogged by a slimy television repairman turned reporter, ignored by a mother who wants a new refrigerator more than a freed son, and supported by his mother's best friend whose answer to every tragedy is a trip to the Bar-B-Chew Barn, Vernon is left to his own, not-so-sophisticated devices.

This novel is funny in a grating way: the humor has a forced edge to it that sometimes works but often doesn't. Malapropisms abound and quickly get tiring, mostly because the narrator is not as ignorant as the garbled phrases suggest. The language is profane and sometimes clumsy, and Vernon's hormonally-charged psyche comes out in weak, meaningless descriptions, such as piano notes "tinkling in the background, soft as ovaries hitting oatmeal." With often biting satire, Pierre turns his eye to many facets of American society: the media, the judicial system, obsession with food, small town life, religion, psychiatry, families, adolescent angst. The scenes are over the top, which is perfect for satire, but Pierre never tackles the issues with any depth or fresh insight. Instead, this novel reads as a dark comic strip punctuated by profanity. It is ultimately more ambitious than it is successful. Even its thematic development of religious imagery is clumsy. Pierre uses Vernon's friend's name Jesus frequently in a context that could confuse him with the Christian Messiah, and Vernon often talks about being nailed to a cross; these references fall heavily and without real meaning. (I find it intriguing that both last year's Man Booker Prize (The Life of Pi) and this 2003 winner rely on religious imagery to convey the plight of a naif.)

VERNON GOD LITTLE is a memorable book, told with a voice that is as distinctive as the best first-person narrators in fiction; however, a voice alone does not make a fine novel. I recommend this uneven book only for those who want to keep up on the latest prize-winners in fiction, and perhaps for those who liked A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, a novel to which this is often compared.

44 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elements of Past Faves, October 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Vernon God Little (Man Booker Prize) (Hardcover)

This reminds me a lot of three books: MY FRACTURED LIFE (Rikki Lee Travolta), CATCHER IN THE RYE (JD Salinger), and THE OUTSIDERS (SE Hinton). If you enjoy these books I recommend you may like this one too. I found it to be excellent.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A Comedy In The Presence Of Death" & A Daring Novel!, November 26, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vernon God Little (Man Booker Prize) (Hardcover)

"Vernon God Little," Mr. Pierre's first novel, won the 2003 Man Booker Prize, which is the most prestigious award for fiction in the UK. The novel is an example of satire at its best, biting, witty and at times, just plain funny. The humor, however, is very dark. Mr. Pierre's writing clearly demonstrates his contempt for the media, the US criminal justice system, capital punishment, and our contemporary culture's pandemic materialism. He takes on the seamier aspects of life in America, or more specifically, in a small town in central Texas, Martirio by name. Pierre's scathing indictment of the townspeople - their acquisitiveness; greed; mean-spirited gossip; fast food obsessions juxtaposed with their zeal for the latest fad diet; their dependence on television; and their pandering to mass media, an ever present post-tragedy intrusion into their daily lives - certainly paints a bleak picture of a community whose citizens come off poorly under duress.

At the center of the turmoil is 15-year-old Vernon Little, a 21st Century Holden Caulfield who is desperately trying to come of age, while the people of his town are determined to give him the death penalty. Vernon narrates the story in highly idiomatic but expressive English, chock-full of malaprops. He is under arrest and charged as the accomplice in a brutal school shooting where 16 students were murdered. He has become the town's "skate goat" in the aftermath of a Colombine-style massacre committed by his best friend, "Meskin" (Mexican) Jesus Navarro. Vernon ponders his friend's death, "He keeps secrets from me, like he never did before. He got weird." Vernon, who is a flawed teen, obsessed with his bowels but certainly innocent of any crime, describes himself: "....lawless brown hair, the eyelashes of a camel, big ole puppy-dog features like God made me through a fu*ken magnifying glass. You know right away my movie's the one where I puke on my legs, and they send the nurse to interview me instead." Indeed, author Pierre's talent for giving Vernon a true adolescent voice, crude language along with some brilliant insights and a sense of honor, is part of what makes this novel so strong. Vernon is at once a hormone driven, alienated anti-hero, and at the same time quietly grief stricken and noble. As events surrounding the case become increasingly chaotic, Vernon unwittingly becomes the victim of a nefarious conspiracy. His eventual and unavoidable demise is chronicled here.

Author, DBC Pierre, (The "DBC" in his nom de plume stands for "Dirty But Clean"), aptly calls the novel, "A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death. He is, in reality, a native-born Australian named Peter Finlay, who lived much of his early life in Mexico. Pierre effectively builds a sense of revulsion in the reader without using heavy-handed moralization. In fact he keeps us laughing through many a sick and twisted scenario. The author's narrative is uneven at times. There are moments of brilliance that fade into page after page describing the monotonous life of Martirio's citizens. The "redneck" dialogue and vernacular are colorful and believable, and Pierre's prose is often beautiful. He is a risk-taker and if you are willing to go along with him for the ride, it is certainly a wild one. The book's conclusion is a bit too facile and felt like a cop-out to me. However, the pluses far outweigh the minuses in this excellent and far-out novel.

If you are easily offended by criticism of life in Texas, or in America, especially when not written by an American - then this is not the book for you. Otherwise, enjoy!
JANA