Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16548 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

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

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.

Jonathan Lethem
'Read Vernon God Little not only for its dangerous relevance, but for the coruscating wit and raw vitality of its voice...'

Customer Reviews

Weird and whacky
Did I like this book? I honestly can't say. It's certainly wierd. And it's very whacky.

It's a bit like "Catcher In the Rye" updated for the 21st century, except it's slightly more off the wall, and I could never imagine Holden Caulfield, despite all his teen angst, suddenly finding himself on some mind-bending reality show on Death Row where viewers vote who's going to be the next one to meet ol' Sparky. Yes, I told you it was weird.

DBC Pierre came out of nowhere to land the Booker Prize last year. And like this novel - his first - he seems a bit weird and whacky, too.

I have to say that I was impressed with Pierre's turns of phrase, his clever way with words and his inventive use of language.

I think what I enjoyed most about "Vernon God Little" was the satire, the whole sending-up of small town America (although I've never been to Texas, reading this book is exactly what I imagine it to be like, images and impressions cobbled together from movies and TV shows).

This is closely followed by the narrator's voice. It's unique and, for the most part, rings true. Even though the aforementioned Holden Caulfied had "issues" and was alienated, his problems, his views, were tame by comparison. One gets the impression that Vernon Gregory Little DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE about how the world operates: he's naive and gullible; he's also highly manipulative and self-centred and he's just a tad sex-obsessed; but he also has a health problem that keeps him grounded in an endearing kind of self-conscious way.

The story itself, which reads a bit like a road movie, is not so much plot driven but character driven. Effectively it all happens in Vernon's head. And the whole premise of a school shooting, which puts Vernon on America's Most Wanted List, happens before the story even starts; you just get tiny "glimpses" of what actually happened on that fateful day, filtered through Vernon's eyes, towards the end of the book.

What I didn't like was the almost fantastical elements to it (especially Part V); they were riotiously funny but a little ridiculous and because of that the story didn't seem particularly believable. It also took me awhile to get into the flow of the book; I think this is a read-in-big-chunks type of story rather than one you can pick up and read for small, intermittent periods.

All in all, an interesting and somewhat intriguing novel, but unless you're an experienced "literary" type reader who doesn't mind bad language, quirky characterisation and experiemental story-telling, I'd say this one isn't for you.

U . S . EH???
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.

Vernon Genius Little
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.