Vernon God Little ANNOTATION
Winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
In the town jail of Martirio - the barbecue sauce capital of Central Texas - sits fifteen-year-old Vernon Little, dressed only in New Jack trainers and underpants. He is in trouble.
His friend Jesus has just blown away sixteen of his classmates before turning the gun on himself. And Vernon, as his only buddy, has become the focus of the town's need for vengeance.
The news of the tragedy has resulted in the quirky backwater being flooded with wannabe CNN hacks all-too-keen to claim their fifteen minutes and lay the blame for the killings at Vernon's feet. In particular Eulalio Ledesma, who begins manipulating matters so that Vernon becomes the centre for the bizarre and vengeful impulses of the townspeople of Martirio.
But Vernon is sure he'll be ok. "Why do movies end happy? Because they imitate life. You know it, I know it."
Peopled by a cast of grotesques, freaks, cold-blooded chattering housewives (who are all mysteriously, recently widowed), and one very special adolescent with an unfortunate talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Vernon God Little is riotously funny and puts lust for vengeance, materialism, and trial by media squarely in the dock.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
… Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life. Here's Vernon on what it's like to approach a girl he's supposed to meet at a mall: ''I slouch low, hoping she doesn't see me yet. I hate it when you go to meet somebody, and they spot you.'' They stare at you, he continues, though it's not true -- the girl is just looking at him kindly. ''You feel like your steps bounce too much, or your shoulders are too dangly or something. You hold the same dumb smile.'' Holden Caulfield would have liked Vernon Little, especially if he'd had access to a stash of Ritalin.
— Sam Sifton
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.
Library Journal
Published to critical acclaim in England, this first novel is a satirical look at contemporary America viewed through the eyes of Vernon Little, a 15-year-old who is the sole survivor of a high school massacre. Vernon's best friend, Jesus Navarro, was the shooter; but since Jesus is dead, the town makes Vernon their scapegoat. Pierre, whose real name is Peter Finlay and who occasionally visited Texas while growing up in Mexico, paints a black picture of a place where a boy can be executed before he is old enough to buy a drink legally, where a mother is more concerned about getting a new refrigerator than her innocent son's having been accused of mass murder. The stereotypes are broad: poor Mexicans are noble; white Texans are idiots; women are mindless, materialistic gossips; and convicted murderers are more humane than people outside. America may have difficulty finding the humor in this novel, but equally troubling is the inauthenticity of the narrative voice. Purchase only for libraries with sophisticated readers, far away from Texas.-Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A schoolyard massacre, a teenager on the lam, gross-out humor, and jabs at the media. Two things you should know at the outset. First, the narrative voice of 15-year-old Vernon Little overwhelms everything else. Second, the story is shaped like a doughnut. 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. The delayed revelation is pointless and without suspense; what happened is that Jesus Navarro, a Mexican kid and Vernon's buddy, goaded unendurably by his classmates, mowed down 16 of them before killing himself. Vernon is being held as a possible accessory to murder, though we know our boy is innocent. In his loud whine, he tells us about his Mom, his Mom's friends, his obsession (panties), and his predicament (no control over his bowels). His identity is filtered through favorite words ("slime," "cream pie," "fucken"), which capture a teenager's self-absorption, but nothing more: there is no vision of his world. He escapes to Mexico only to be entrapped by the gorgeous Taylor, a high-school acquaintance who's working hand-in-glove with Lally, a sinister con man who has already tricked Vern's Mom. Flown back to Houston, Vern stands accused of 34 murders; his TV image is so familiar that viewers even connect him to others (the "suggestibility" factor). Meanwhile, Lally has set up his own Reality TV, filming Death Row inmates and having viewers decide the order of their executions. Vern is convicted, then pardoned; what saves him are his own dried turds, found miles from the crimescene ("Stool's Out!" says Time). Humor and mass murder make for strange bedfellows, and first-timer Pierre fails to find the tone that might harmonize them. Film rights to Aimee Peyronnet; first printing of 35,000; author tour. Agent: Clare Conville at Conville and Walsh
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