Vernon God Little: a 21st century comedy in the presence of death

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I really didn't like this book at all, but I have to admit that it captures the spirit of America in an unpleasantly accurate way.

Vernon God Little, By DBC Pierre By DBC Nick Hern Books | Vernon God Little, By DBC Pierre By DBC

The local sexual molester, Mr Deutschman, has "the voice quality of genuine oleness, like he swallowed a vibrator or something". He states the novel was a reaction to the culture around him, which after his own reorientation in life seemed to be full of the same delusional behaviours and self-entitlements which brought his own earlier downfall [ citation needed].We know that one summer Tuesday in the oil town of Martirio in central Texas there occurred a Columbine-style massacre, and we know the identity of the shooter, but the context of the killings is withheld until near the end: that’s the hole in the doughnut. It is welcome that certain ones are not over-indulged, such as the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown double act depicted figuratively as twins not separated at birth.

Pierre - Literature - British Council DBC Pierre - Literature - British Council

So I guess Vernon God Little is a decent book with some strong language and excellent passages but the novel doesn’t seem worth mentioning as some big prize winner or one of the thousand books you have to read before you die. So it will show in my review, and if you don’t think you can handle my rawness, you can just quit now and go back to watching Court TV or Doctor Fucken Phil or whatever. I bust my ass to provide for my family and run a tight household and I do it in pain every fucken day. I think I need to stop reading so many American books before I cause some serious damage to my cholesterol levels.Fortunately it did improve a little and the second half was in places quite a crazy and entertaining satire of the values of middle America, and the whole thing does have energy and a degree of cheek, but I don't think it has lasted as well as most of the other Booker winners. I've read quite a few different fiction books about high school massacres, most of them generated after Columbine but this one was quite different as the high school shooting spree in Maritirio is not the focus of this story.

Vernon God Little - review | Theatre | The Guardian

In the fall, Vernon's trial is televised, with court officials, witnesses, and Vernon being made up for the cameras. The perception of Vernon's innocence weakens when his Mom's best friend, the food-obsessed Palmyra (Pam) arrives and, against Vernon's better judgment, whisks him off to Bar-B-Chew Barn, allowing the police to claim he is a flight risk. Vernon God Little (2003), DBC Pierre’s first novel, begins in the aftermath of a high-school massacre and 15-year-old Vernon Gregory Little, the eponymous hero and first-person narrator is helping the police with their investigation. Fast talk and money get Vernon into Mexico without identification, and a truck driver, Pelayo, takes him to his dream world on the beach near Acapulco. Acerbic notes like this are funny but isolating; because Vern's voice is so strong, so unanswerable, there is no room for a second opinion, for Eulalio Ledesma, or Vaine Gurie, or Oliver Goosens, or any of the other improbably named and ultimately rather pathetic characters to tell their side of the story.She pulls her phone from a holster on her belt, and suspends one finger over a key, eyeing me all the while. Fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory life is forever shaken up to the extreme when his best friends murders their classmates in a rampage, but for DBC that ain't the story. Vernon is relying on Nuckles’ testimony to clear him, but Nuckles has been convinced that Vernon was involved. What tends to pass for normal in the 21st century is described in grotesque terms as Vernon’s fate is manipulated by the media and justice system.