Vernon God Little [Paperback]

DBC Pierre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2004

When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff's office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday's underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico.

Vernon God Little is a provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The surprise winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize, DBC Pierre's debut novel, Vernon God Little, makes few apologies in its darkly comedic portrait of Martirio, Texas, a town reeling in the aftermath of a horrific school shooting. Fifteen-year-old Vernon Little narrates the first-person story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his diet-obsessed townsfolk. His mother, endlessly awaiting the delivery of a new refrigerator, seems to exist only to twist an emotional knife in his back; her friend, Palmyra, structures her life around the next meal at the Bar-B-Chew Barn; officer Vaine Gurie has Vernon convicted of the crime before she's begun the investigation; reporter Eulalio Ledesma hovers between a comforting father-figure and a sadistic Bond villain; and Jesus, his best friend in the world, is dead--a victim of the killings. As his life explodes before him, Vernon flees his home in pursuit of a tropical fantasy: a cabin on a beach in Mexico he once saw in the movie Against All Odds. But the police--and TV crews--are in hot pursuit.

Vernon God Little is a daring novel and demands a patient reader, not because it is challenging to read--Pierre's prose flows effortlessly, only occasionally slipping from the unmistakable voice of his hero--but because the book skates so precariously between the almost taboo subject of school violence and the literary gamesmanship of postmodern fiction. Yet, as the novel unfolds, Pierre's parodic version of American culture never crosses the line into caricature, even when it climaxes in a death-row reality TV show. And Vernon, whose cynicism and smart-ass "learnings" give way to a poignant curiosity about the meaning of life, becomes a fully human, profoundly sympathetic character. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Pierre takes a freewheeling, irreverent look at teenage Sturm und Drang in his erratic, sometimes darkly comic debut novel about a Texas boy running from the law in the wake of a gory school shooting. Vernon Gregory Little is the 15-year-old protagonist, a nasty, sarcastic teenager accused of being an accessory to the murders committed by his friend Jesus Navarro in tiny Martirio, "the barbecue sauce capital of Texas." Vernon manages to make bail and avoid the media horde that descends on the town after the killings, but he's unable to get to the other gun-his father's-which he knows will tie him to the crime, despite his innocence. His flight path takes him first to Houston, where he unsuccessfully tries to hook up with gorgeous former schoolmate Taylor Figueroa; the crafty beauty, promised a media job by the evil Lally, who's also duped Vernon's mom, follows him to Mexico and efficiently betrays him. Most of the plotting feels like an excuse for Vernon's endless, sharply snide riffs on his small town and the unique excesses of America that helped spawn the killings. Unfortunately, Vernon's voice grows tiresome, his excesses make him rather unlikable and the over-the-top, gross-out humor is hit-or-miss. Pierre's wild energy offers entertaining satire as well as cringe-provoking scenes, and though he can write with incisive wit, this is a bumpy ride.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (June 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156029987
• ISBN-13: 978-0156029988
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (155 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #876,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 53 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars All Voice November 17, 2003

By Debbie Lee Wesselmann TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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. Read more ›

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 HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format: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 Read more ›

32 of 41 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The joke's on everyone November 4, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Vernon God Little is not a terrible novel; it tells an intermittently humorous story, written in the currently fashionable rambling style of first-person confession. It's just not a story that bears any resemblance to life in the US.

Sadly, it is painfully obvious that the novelist substituted watching imported US television for actual research. Instead of the Booker, the novel should win the Nebula, for bears as much resemblance to reality as does I, Robot. DBC Pierre - or rather, Peter Finley - can't even get the rhythm of the speech right, making supposedly redneck Vernon sound like a refugee from Manchester, UK.

For a satire to work, it must be grounded in the subject which it satirizes. Vernon God Little misses by a mile. And since the book is not strenuous to read - as long as you're familiar with four-letter Anglo-Saxon expletives, you'll get through the prose no time - it is the perfect comfort food for those who like to jump on media bandwagons in the hopes of puffing up their own pseudo-intellectual consequence, but who might find, oh say, Oryx and Crake or Middlesex a little daunting.

Above all, Vernon God Little is America for those living on distant shores so they can stop feeling vaguely anxious because their ancestors forgot to emigrate, or worse, emigrated to the wrong New World. Even sadder, for they should know better, the book confirms the worst stereotypes of "flyover country" for those smugly superior in the Greater Tri-State area or West Coast, for whom Texas is as exotic and unknown as Uganda.

There are far better recent books about teenage alienation, oblivious parents and feeble-minded authority figures - some even written by real American teenagers.... Please Don't Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope or Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chlobsky are novels that would not (and should not) receive literary prizes, but at least know their subject matter. And there are far better satires of American mores and manners out there. I've read Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, Heller and Vonnegut are favorite authors of mine, and you, Mr. Finley, are no Heller or Vonnegut. As for shedding light on US school shootings, Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine provokes far more thought and reflection - and black humor - on the subject.

What's so amazing about the hoopla surrounding the book is that Finley is an admitted con artist/supposedly clean former junkie of the worst sort; the type who thought nothing of swindling his elderly American benefactor out of his home in Spain, leaving the man homeless and depressed. Congratulations to Finley for once more pulling off a terrific con, brillantly hoodwinking the British media (thankfully, the New York Times, among others, has seen through the smoke and mirrors on the other side of the Atlantic.)

But then, those who proclaim the Booker Emperor has New Clothes really only have themselves to blame. Read more ›