Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Vernon God Little
    Unavailable
    Vernon God Little
    Unavailable
    Vernon God Little
    Ebook332 pages7 hours

    Vernon God Little

    By DBC Pierre

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Hailed by the critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

    The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young, protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrove Press
    Release dateAug 7, 2012
    ISBN9780802194350
    Unavailable
    Vernon God Little

    Read more from Dbc Pierre

    Related to Vernon God Little

    Related ebooks

    Humor & Satire For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Trouble Gene

      Jul 1, 2020

      One clear thing about trouble—it can set you back to zero, a personal cone of silence. And reading, writing, listening allow entry into that troubled solitude; you disappear into it regardless t of the time or place you really are in, be it bed, kitc

      12 min read

    • Article

      Picks Of Our Literati

      Dec 9, 2019

      Sarah Lang: It’s a toss-up between the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House on the Prairie series. I’ve read all the books in both series perhaps a hundred times, often right before bed. They remind me of hiding in a giant toy box so my f

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Kyle Winkler

      Dec 22, 2021

      The book is a blister. It’s fun to touch, mess with, and you eventually want to see it explode. But when it does, it’s more of a mess than you expected, hurts, and takes a while to heal. The post A Year in Reading: Kyle Winkler appeared first on The

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lingering EFFECTS

      Jun 2, 2022

      Lingering EFFECTS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Literary Paper Dolls: Franny

      May 20, 2019

      Literary Paper Dolls: Franny
      5 min read

    • Article

      All Of Us Here

      Jun 4, 2020

      All Of Us Here
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lit Hub Recommends

      Sep 21, 2018

      Lit Hub Recommends
      4 min read

    • Article

      What We’re Reading This Summer

      Jun 28, 2019

      Atlantic staffers pick 14 books to spend time with this season, including Freshwater, Republic of Spin, Killing and Dying, and more.

      10 min read

    • Article

      Robin Ince Is On The Road

      Jul 10, 2023

      Every week is independent bookshop week for me, but there is also an official independent bookshop week for those who need reminding, so I took off to Arnold, Belper and Nottingham for some shop, library and school events. The week began threateningl

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 27, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS Although I was very happy to see my two ShukerNature books receive a positive joint review [FT411:65], I have to corr

      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hey, Necromancer!

      Sep 18, 2018

      Hey, Necromancer!
      8 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Nov 28, 2022

      In James Hannaham’s latest novel, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, we meet Carlotta Mercedes, a trans woman who has just spent the last 20 years of her life in a men’s prison. On the day of her release, she finds herself wandering

      3 min read

    Reviews for Vernon God Little

    3.5/5

    1,177 ratings42 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Amazing and creative language in a setting that reflects many of America's worst facets.
    • 3/5
      I got into this more as it went along, but still wasn't thrilled overall. I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind, and found myself impatient with plot illogicality. Picky, I know, but there you go.
    • 2/5
      A gritty tale of Texas white trash with a strong focus on anal sphincters and excrement. Absolutely nothing to recommend it.
    • 2/5
      Everything about this book seemed forced and ridiculous to me. Sometimes I liked the main character, but mostly not. A poor "Catcher in the Rye" imitation. Not a book I would recommend.
    • 4/5
      No question about the quality of the writing (it's high: the modern American teenager's verbal awkwardness released through a lyrical written consciousness), perhaps more about whether this is for everyone.It's filthy and shot through with bleakness. Then again, it's the filth and bleakness of the modern world, nothing more or less. Pierre has nailed the internal grindings of an adolescent boy, and much of America too. I couldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did were it not for the lively sense of humour, and the redemption which is given room to breathe. Tellingly, it's the redemption Vernon envisages; he's a product of his world to the last.
    • 5/5
      'Vernon God Little' is commonly denounced as an unrealistic portrayal of the tragedy of a school shooting, similar to the incident at Columbine High in Colorado some years ago. These type folks fail to realize that 'Vernon God Little' is only barely about a school shooting. It's about fancy writin'. Check it:"Deputy Gurie tears a strip of meat from a bone; it flaps through her lips like a shit taken backwards."A shit taken backwards! Is that even possible? Who cares, it rules! Gems of this sort preponder in V.G. Little.People seem to think that 'Vernon' was meant to be to the Columbine Massacre as 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' was to 9/11, or as the documentary 'Terminator 2' was to the coming robot rebellion. But it's not.The school shooting is just an example of the larger malaise and absurdity DBC Pierre is pointing at with 'Vernon.' To even read the first sentence of the synopsis on the inside flap will show that Pierre is aiming a little higher than a recreation of the tragedy. The name of Vernon's Mexican friend who shot 16 kids and then himself is Jesus. Jesus killed a bunch of kids. Jesus is killing YOUR kids. And then killing himself. And Vernon 'God' Little is on the run from the cops.This book has the very rare quality of being wildly funny and startlingly meaningful simultaneously. For this reason,a blurb on the back compares it to 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' and I agree. Although there is much more cursing and sex in 'Vernon,' which makes it automatically better.Pierre also creates the most likable character I've read since, say, the protagonist in John Barth's 'The Floating Opera,' or what his face from 'The Sun Also Rises.' The sort of main character you can't help but want to see succeed. Or even William Stoner from 'Stoner' or Bjartur of Summerhouses from 'Independent People.' Characters who just can't catch a break, even though they probably deserve one.Furthermore, all the narration is in Vernon's "fucken" dialect, which might get fucken old if it weren't so goddamn funny and Pierre was less tasteful and skillful with it. But he is, so it only serves to support the reader's warm feelings toward 'Vernon.'The metaphor in 'Vernon' is trashily powerful. Can't find the page, but something like "The sky was like a bunch of lint balls on a soggy graham cracker." Mmm. Lint.Suffice it to say, you should read this book, and you should should ignore the idea that it is meant to be a paean for the lives lost at Columbine High, because it's not. If you can divest yourself of that thought, you will at *least* have fun reading it, whether you agree with Pierre's assessment of American pop culture or not, because it is a masterful farce. Also:"You don't know how bad I want to be Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ram her fucken gun up her ass, and run away with a panty model. But just look at me: clump of lawless brown hair, the eyelashes of a camel. Big ole puppy-dog features like God made me through a fucken magnifying glass. You know right away my movie's the one where I puke on my legs, and they send a nurse to interview me instead."
    • 1/5
      I want to give this such a better review and rating but I don't even remember reading it! Book journal says I did, put it on the re-read list.
    • 3/5
      A very strange book. It’s not the plot that’s strange, although it is somewhat surreal at times, not the characters, or the setting. It’s the narrator, who is crude and scatologically obsessed. It’s like watching an episode of South Park or Family Guy, but without a lot of the humor. Although there is some wry, satirical humor.Vernon Little is the narrator, a teenager from Texas caught in the tragedy of a school shooting. He is blamed for it, or at least targeted as the scapegoat, and then all manner of unlikely events occur.So if you can get past the constant images of shit and crap and the aroma of poontang, you might actually enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      This is a very painful read!As with the best of satire, you are taken into a world of extremes where you KNOW that this couldn't really happen (or could it?)!The characters who people this world are not like us - they are condensations of what we can do, of how we could think, of how we might act. You need only look at the vigilante groups wandering various parts of the world, at the more extreme religious views held by certain groups of people and of the ruthless way the media have at times investigated personal tragedies to realise that this is not about any one place or any one time - it is about all of us and about what we could turn into if there were not people like the author of this work throwing books like this at our heads and hoping, like the fools of old, some of the message sticks.
    • 4/5
      Damn funny and irreverent. Though sometimes I found myself becoming frustrated at just how much goes wrong for poor Vernon Little, the ending really made it worth it. It's about time something this cutting and amusing came from an Australian author.National tragedies. Media beat ups. Excrement.And it's better than it sounds.
    • 4/5
      Such an astonishing book!! Enjoyed so much the humour and sadness in it.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. the characters were so well drawn, and the style so refreshing. I couldn't put it down. Some were put off by the swearing and refused to read it, but if you are writing about a teenage boy, and using his words, of course there will be swearing, he is hardly likely to go around saying 'gosh, how absolutely ghastly'. This book, while dealing with a serious and awful event at a High School in America, manages to portray with humour the scrapes a young man can get into if he is always believed to be a criminal. Some of the characters are hilarious, I found myself laughing out loud.Definitely recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      This coming-of-age story features Vernon Little, a fifteen year old small-town Texan who is implicated in murder and seems unable to defend himself against a misguided community. It is mostly a biting satire based on all the most common stereotypes about Americans, their life and culture (perhaps the aspect that made it so attractive to the Booker committee). Its greatest strength is young Vernon’s marvelously human and individual voice, and its spot-on humor. Its weakness is perhaps the same – his offensive language, his adolescent views, the scatological and sexual excesses of his commentary. Many had the same response to The Catcher in the Rye at its debut, although its more serious approach appealed more to me. This story is entirely implausible, but as a work of social satire, that is beside the point. Readers will perhaps find it instructive as a cautionary tale, humorous in its approach to Americans’ worst excesses, and delightful in its flawed but sympathetic protagonist. Although it is a 2003 work, it is especially timely right now, in that it takes special note of growing intolerance toward Hispanic citizens and their families.
    • 4/5
      Vernon's best friend shoots up a school and Vernon becomes a scapegoat and the chance of a lifetime for a greasy, slimeball loser named Lally. Local color is a tad distracting, but you gotta love a book that has this line: "Ella's (hair) always blown to hell, like a Barbie doll your dog's been chewing on for a month."
    • 4/5
      The tag of Booker Prize winner is no guarantee of a satisfying read, but the last two (Life of Pi and now Vernon God Little) make one look forward to the next.VGL is a street-wise teenager growing up in a small town in Central Texas. In the hysteria that follows a mass shooting at his high school, he becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation. The real culprit, his friend Jesus, was his own final victim and no longer satisfied the craving for retribution.This is a crackling, pacy short novel – almost a long short story in the American style. It is funny, acerbic, sometimes satirical, and profound. The vitality of the book stems from the strength of its wise-cracking hero. VGL the street kid, views the world with the steady, dispassionate gaze of a perceptive adult, In spite of his mounting troubles, he betrays no flicker of self-pity. Towards those who wrong him (practically everyone!), he shows not malice but understanding. Almost Christ-like virtues (and there is plenty of such imagery and allusion), with the difference that VGL is free from messianic delusions of grandeur. A terrific central character in a terrific book.
    • 5/5
      As a sixteen year old boy, I thought this was a great laugh-out-loud book, and a great way of combining British humour within an unmistakably American setting. Very much a modern 'catcher in the rye' type book, not supprised that it won such a prestigious award.
    • 1/5
      Not so funny humorous book. Got slightly better at the end, but not worthy of awards. Lots of gratuitous vulgarity.
    • 5/5
      It's interesting that an Australian raised in Mexico can imagine an "America-as-imagined-by-Brits".This could be destined to become one of my all-time favourites.
    • 4/5
      The narrative voice in this novel is everything. Vernon is a teenager with more reasons than most to be abrasive and anti-authoritarian. You have to root for him, even though his personality is anything but admirable. And he's funny whether he's confronting the local media Handsome Harry or the constabulary who want to know what he had to do with his friend's Columbine moment. To 'solve' the mystery of his missing father, pay attention to the bench out front of his ma's place.
    • 5/5
      You will laugh even though this is a story about pathetic people surviving a school shooting in their small Texas town. Amazing, right? But the way this author weaves the story, is truly clever. I was hooked. The name of the town, Martirio, even means martyr, which is certainly a theme in the book. Sooo many great topics here. My kind of literature. (Compare to Catcher in the Rye.)
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the comedy elements of this book - there are some brilliantly funny phrases which make this worth reading. That said I found the story and characters hard going. The ending is bizarre and lost me completely. This book is a real mixed bag for me - sometimes I loved it and sometimes I didn't think I would finish it. This book may well be the literary equivalent to marmite.
    • 5/5
      If Catcher in the Rye and Southpark had a child, Vernon God Little would be their frenetic, foul-mouthed, Red- Bull guzzling offspring. Laced with witty vernacular and a constant barrage of verbal gymnastics, this book delivers like very few books do. One of the best books I've ever read. Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      Pierre didn't quite capture America--his depiction of American culture, even in parody, gave me the sense of reading English translated into a foreign language then back again--but that actually made the book in a way more interesting. It was a look at someone from outside looking in at the ugliest, least flattering side of us.
    • 4/5
      I honesty cannot see how "Vernon God Little" won the Man Booker Prize (or the Whitbread Best First Novel Award or the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for Comic Writing for that matter). It's not that it's poorly written, although I was tempted to stop reading throughout the earlier sections of the book, but it just didn't grab my attention like a good novel should. And considering I was living in South Korea at the time and was starved of English language literature, it's a big statement to claim I was tempted to stop reading.Yes, "Vernon God Little" improves as it goes on and by the end I did care whether the narrator lived or died but I think it suffered from its huge reputation.While I'm here, I'll take the opportunity to give a shout-out to Luling, Texas, name-checked in the book. I spent an evening in Luling more than twenty years ago but the place still seems to haunt me; not quite in a "Poltergeist" way, but close.
    • 3/5
      interesting, but ultimately not all that satisfying... kept me entertained, and enjoyed the media circus around the whole justice thing, but didn't find any of the characters engaging enough to care about the outcome...
    • 1/5
      You know those comic novels which are supposed to be funny but aren’t, and where the narrator’s voice is supposed to be funny but isn’t… well, this is one of them. There has been a tragedy in the Texas town of Martirio. Vernon’s best friend, Jesus, has gunned down several of his schoolmates, and Vernon is still under suspicion as an accomplice. (He’s innocent, but no one particularly cares – Jesus is dead, and Vernon makes a good scapegoat). This is one of those novels where the entire cast are white trailer trash, and that’s sufficient to present them as comedy characters. Ignorance may be fertile soil for comedy, but there’s a right way to handle it and a wrong way. There’s a meanness to the characterisations in Vernon God Little which makes for unpleasant reading. It doesn’t help that Vernon is a thoroughly unlikeable narrator, nor in fact that none of the characters in the book are at all likeable – most, in fact, are closer to caricature than character. How this book won the Booker Prize is a mystery; how it was picked for the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list is an even bigger mystery. One to avoid.
    • 4/5
      This guy was in the running for a five-star review and probably would have made it if not for the post-climactic ending, in which Pierre feels the inexplicable need to get everything all squared away, thoroughly diminishing the enjoyment of the preceding events. If you haven't read it, this review is now making less than no sense, and I simply recommend you read it until you start to feel mildly disappointed, then stop.
    • 4/5
      Imaginative, beautifully written, funny, the invention of a delightful character
    • 4/5
      This is a very clever, insightful book. Vernon grows a little more on you every page that you turn. I found my opinion of him shifting subtly as the novel progressed. The teenage first-person narrative gave the story an ingenuous feel as the plot evolved.There is a poignant wit and humour that makes you want to linger over some thoughts, while at the same time you can't help but want to leap into the next paragraphs to find out what develops next.I will definitely be reading this book again.
    • 3/5
      Vernon Gregory Little, a 15-year-old boy from central Texas, who always seems to make inappropriate decisions or be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The book itself is a bit of a dark comedy as the main story arc revolves around Vernon's alleged participation in a violent school shooting where 16 classmates were killed. Hard to imagine this premise would spawn a humor book, but alas it does.My biggest issue with this novel was my inability to relate to the main character. Parts of the novel were funny, parts confusing, but mostly I just didn't care. I was surprised to find that this was an award winning book, but what the heck do I know I am just one opinion in a sea of many.