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

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Everyone tries to get in on Vernon's supposed guilt, from the townsfolk who stage a hoedown in honour of the dead to a rapacious TV repair man who poses as an on-the-spot reporter.

The Guardian Talk this way | Books | The Guardian

After his victory on Tuesday, Pierre told BBC News Online just how desperate he had felt when he began writing the book. Join him and DBC Pierre for a discussion of the novel on Wednesday November 29 at the Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Urban western Europe in 1735, a peak of civilisation and manners (granted: as an affluent white male).In much the same way that noir novelists like James Ellroy seem steeped in the rhythms and textures of jazz, there is a jagged, punk-rock sensibility to Pierre's prose, absolutely his own. Sensing that she has trouble on her hands, his mother's fat friends arrive, "like they have scandal radar or something", and "foam out of the car like suds from a sitcom washing machine". British Council complies with data protection law in the UK and laws in other countries that meet internationally accepted standards. A less vibrant view of a massacre and its fallout (as with Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes) would make the extraordinary banal.

Observer review: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre | Fiction

These included the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction, and the First Novel Award in the Whitbread Awards. Like the best satires, it makes you feel faintly guilty for laughing, which intensifies the pleasure of reading. If all fiction seeks to convince you of its own paradigm -- or "Powerdime" in Vern-speak -- this one succeeds. The mundane yet tortuous relationship between teenager and parent is also always on Vernon’s mind as he describes his mother as turning the knife when she embarrasses him or makes him feel guilty: ‘Between you and me, it’s like she planted a knife in my back when I was born, and now every fucken noise she makes just gives it a turn. Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk.But I guess you should all read it because every page it seemed VERY ENJOYABLE and while reading the book I had the feeling like I was eating Butterscotch ice-cream . He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege.