Vernon God Little

Vernon God Little

Aesop

4.5
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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.

Acknowledgements

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea

Loves t'have his sails filled with a lusty wind,

Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,

And his rapt ship run on her side so low

That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air.

George Chapman

Love to Katz for gently stitching and filling such fine new sails; to my parents and family for this taste for the sea; and to all whose faith opened space beneath a ragged keel.

To the Burnbury Court of Miracles: Strawberries to Dawn & Mark, who practiced friendship with the stealth many reserve for crime; Lisa for energy and chocolate; Bubbles & Frog, who didn't put me up in Hong Kong; Val Wilson, Martinez, and the Cavendish milieu for enlightenment and vodka; to the CWs - Hawker Siddeley!

May the Watras be with Hog, Hildegard, and all Bara crew; Abrazos pa To?o y los cuates - ora si verda carnales; to Junius and family for longevity of faith; Lynn Pearce & family for mindful encouragement; to all whose shores remain littered with my sins - this could be the handle of a mop ...

Special thanks to Clare Conville, of Conville & Walsh, Lee Brackstone and all at Faber and Faber, for the vigor with which they hoisted this sheet to the breeze, and to Grant Stewart, whose keen eye first sighted the craft approaching.

P.S. Gumby - still want that assassination?

About the Author

DBC PIERRE divided most of the first twenty-three years of his life between Texas and Mexico City. having dabbled in filmmaking and advertising, and lived the high life that proved costly along the way, he settle down to write Vernon God Little two days before his thirty-eighth birthday. He is currently working on his second novel.

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