Vernon God Little [Anglais] [Broché]

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. --Patrick O'Kelley --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In the wake of The Onion's devastatingly funny riffs on 9/11 comes this satiric first novel about the fallout from a Columbine-like shooting in Martirio, Texas, the barbecue-sauce capital of America. Vernon God Little has been mistakenly identified as the shooter in a rampage that left 16 dead at the local high school. Stalked by the media, Vernon feels like his life has turned into a TV movie (he hopes Brian Dennehy will be his lawyer). His mother and her frighteningly simple-minded suburban posse of friends think that emotional support consists of a continuous supply of ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn, although Vernon is facing the death penalty. Every page is saturated with a humor that barely masks Pierre's contempt for the media, the criminal justice system, and the rampant materialism of contemporary culture. Scatological, irreverent, crass, and very, very funny, the novel is told at an absolutely manic pace and will have readers wincing even as they laugh out loud. Pierre is a comic anarchist with talent to spare. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A frenetic yet unexpectedly moving first novel...Vernon God Little is raucous and brooding, coarse and lyric, corrosive and sentimental." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A scabrously funny debut...Pierre has channeled the most afflicted and endearing hero since Rushmore's Max Fischer." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"Vernon has a gift for wordplay that would keep the shade of James Joyce amused." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"Vernon Little's polymorphous voice is the star of the novel...his simmeringly funny monologue [has] the scent of cracked poetry." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness tthe bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff's office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday's underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico.

Vernon God Little is a provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"If Huckleberry Finn were set on the Mexican-American border and written by the creators of South Park, it might read something like this."-San Francisco Chronicle

When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff's office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday's underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico.
Vernon God Little is a provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media.

Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel
A New York Times Notable Book
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

DBC Pierre is the pen name of Peter Finlay, who was born in Australia in 1961 and divided most of the first twenty-three years of his life between Texas and Mexico City. He lives in Ireland.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

DBC Pierre is the pen name of Peter Finlay, who was born in Australia in 1961 and divided most of the first twenty-three years of his life between Texas and Mexico City. He lives in Ireland.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.