Crawfish Pie and Fillet Gumbo (Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
Date:	06/07/04 (282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully written, Irreverent and different

Disadvantages: Crude at times, A wee bit far fetched on occasion

Shit happened" and it?s only the first two words in the book; an exclamation signalling chapter one. ?It?s hot as hell in Martirio, but the papers on the porch are icy with the news. Don?t even try and guess who stood all Tuesday night in the road. Clue: snotty ole Mrs Lechugna.? And so it starts, a road trip of OJ Simpson proportions set along the route from Martirio, Texas right through to Mexico. Vernon Gregory Little, a 15-year-old, Texan boy stands accused of complicity in a mass murder at school. Details of the tragedy are sketchy but that's not gonna stop the prosecution system trying to finger the blame on our hero. Hounded by a crooked media reporter cum TV repair man, Eulalio Ledesma (Lally) looking for a story to make his mark and launch his career, Vern?s life becomes unbearable under the strain of a weak, single momma struggling to make ends meet - Doris Little - and an indifferent community more wrapped up in the mundane goings on in their own lives to pay attention to much else.

Vern is a poet or so he thinks. He has a view on everything including his own undenied innocence. ??Brad Pritchard appears at my window?finger pointed to his shoes. ?Air Maxes,? he states. ?New?. I lift my leg to the window. ?Jordan New Jacks? He squints momentarily before pointing at my Nikes. ?Old? he explains patiently. The he points at his. ?NEW.? I point at his, ?Price of a Barbie Camper.? Then at mine, ?Price of a medium-range corporate jet.??

Lally is the villain of the piece. Having shamefully defrauded his mother of all of her life savings, he is the archetypal crook who lurches from one lie to the next. Sashaying from woman to woman, he captures the heart of Vernon?s mom only to be rumbled through a mis-placed busine
ss card by the astute Vernon. By trying to reveal Lally?s shameful secrets at a showdown at his ma?s house, Vernon only succeeds in making matters worse for himself. Lally spins a whole, new, sinister web of lies to cover up his insidious past and sets out to seal Vernon?s fate by implying his guilt on camera through a variety of underhand ruses.

Already remanded to psychiatric care following a preliminary court hearing, the only option for Vernon appears to be to run for it across the border and hole up with those Meescans (Mexicans) or face a future of unsavoury court-ordered sessions with the anally fixated pervert doctor Goosens.

It?s at this point that I?ll let those that decide to undertake the Greyhound Bus ride to follow the joint smoking, finger flicking cuss-meister that is Vernon G Little on his flight from justice or is it from a loaded penal system intent on swallowing up another innocent victim in the name of publicity?

I stumbled across this book courtesy of a review I was picking through in the Sunday Times. Drawn by it's apparent irreverence, the book has won a string of awards including Whitbread Best First Novel Award 2003, Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for Comic Writing 2003 and was the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2003. DBC Pierre is a new writer on me but then he would be as it?s his debut novel. Born in Australia, the notes at the front of the book tell you that his upbringing was in Mexico although he is now a British citizen living half way up a small mountain in Ireland (strange cat).

With a pedigree like that, you?d have thought it difficult to criticise but then nobody?s perfect. I did find the first few chapters hard going. Don?t get me wrong now, the story flowed and moved at break neck speed but
that in itself was the problem initially. The supporting characters didn?t really get any kind of pen picture drawn so I found it hard to relate to what was going on at times. Sure, I revelled in the hip shenanigans of the central dude but I just couldn?t hang my metaphorical hat on any of the supporting cast as their names flew by my eyes with little in the way of physical description or background.

Notwithstanding, there is a huge amount to crow about for the author. A turn of expression so sharp it could slice bread, his is a tumbling, dancing concoction of words and phrases that, at times, sing out in an urban cry of colloquialism. You can?t help but adore the main character. It?s Vernon against the world and his is one of constant cussing, dry comic observation and dead pan timing. I just cried with laughter when he finally made it to the hole-in-the-wall with Nana?s ATM card. Having waited a comically exaggerated 9 years, the balance was returned as $2.41 and our protagonist was back to square one.

The underlying theme of the book is a satirical take on the justice system in the States and trial by media. Quite how this teenage boy ends up in court charged with a string of murders including many more after the school tragedy is just about anyone?s guess but Pierre builds the story with a skilful progression on each chapter as Vernon?s fate becomes increasingly dire. So in many ways the tale is polemic; a present tense triumph of tongue-in-cheek over modern-times cynicism. You could almost detect a Michael Moore influence with the strident dismantling of the apparent trial by media prevalent in a judicious country bedevilled by law suits and obsessed with making media from just about anything that moves. Such is the overblown preposterousness towards the closing chapters that the reader is in danger of being bemused as to just how the situa
tion has come about in short a ridiculously short period of time.

By way of comparison, I did struggle for any close associations such was the uniqueness of the author?s style. I thought of the Grant/Naylor combination and the Red Dwarf franchise but whilst the sense of timing and irreverence was there in spades, the use of simile didn?t compare in frequency. I guess this is more in the territory of Tom Sharpe or maybe Stephen Fry but I hasten to say again that Pierre?s is a writing methodology all of his own.

Just to add yet more fuel to the fire, even the clever change in the middle name throughout inferred an adaptability that becomes synonymous with the character e.g. everything from Vernon ?genius? Little to the ultimately ubiquitous Vernon ?God? Little. Curious upon curious, there even seems to be the gentlest of religious undertones with occasional references to Jesus on the cross and the like. I?m not sure of the author?s own religious motives but that gentle drift away from secularism does influence the latter stages of the book as the tone changes somewhat from what has gone before. (There is a distinct link involving Jesus at the finale that neatly joins up with the cloudy events of the tragedy but I'll let you discover that for yourself)

As a recommendation then this book is very readable. I?ll knock one star off for the tale not gripping me from the first page and I may well appear mean but I?m sure you?ll understand. This is one for those looking for a witty, punchy read with a serious message underneath. Clearly an adult book, some of the images and language used are crude and may put a few folks off but for me this reflects the unsanitised world we live in and should be welcomed accordingly. A cracking read and very, very funny.

Thanks for reading

Marandina
r>I bought this from Tesco for £3.73. Of course, it will be available at all good online retailers such as Amazon.com. This is the paperback version with 277 pages, ISBN 0-571-21516-5