FICTION
One long scream
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`Pierre has created a hilarious, haunting and eerily authentic voice for our times.'
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WELCOME to Martirio, "the barbecue sauce capital of Texas". Here, people decorate their pumpjacks. They even have competitions for them. This year's prize, says our young narrator Vernon God Little, was won by a Godzilla pumpjack. When they're not decorating their pumpjacks, the ladies of the town are sitting in the Bar-B-Chew Barn, discussing, over tubs of Chik'n'Mix, the relative merits of the Pritikin and Atkins diets. And when they're at home, they're ordering side-by-side almond-shade fridges, and then waiting for them to arrive.
The title of D.B.C. Pierre's book, set in this delectably dysfunctional locale, actually reads: Vernon God Little, a 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death. It might seem like a poor joke to write a comedy based on a Columbine-style killing, but to young Vernon, who could have been your average teenager with average troubles, it seems so funny that it's a scream. And you know what — it really is over-the-top funny. It's so funny that it's one long scream; and the voice that we hear screaming is that of a 15-year old boy waiting in Death Row.
Vernon Little is not God; far from it. Apart from having a troublesome sphincter, he is accused of being an accomplice in the murder of 16 of his classmates at school. His Mexican friend Jesus Navarro, who was in fact responsible for the bloodbath, is now dead, having turned the gun upon himself. Vernon does have an alibi, but it is too embarrassing to confess. Besides, he has another problem: there is a second gun, which used to belong to his father, and it is hidden not far away from the location of his little episode of incontinence.
To add to his miseries, his mother has embarked upon a passionate affair with a TV news reporter named Eulalio, affectionately known to the ladies as Lally, who appears from nowhere to swoop down on Martirio to scavenge everything he can from the remains of the Columbine-style killings.
Martirio itself is temporarily distracted from its pumpjack-decorating pastimes to express its hysterical grief. Candlelight vigils, teddy bears and gardens full of flowers notwithstanding, the town is unable to introspect on the real reasons for the tragedy. Goaded by reality TV from its consumption-induced slumber, it can only put aside its drippy starch, jerk its knees and rouse up a lynch mob, with SWAT teams and all. The pastor is too busy for forgiveness: all he can offer is a stall at the Tragedy Sale. And caught in the middle of this macabre farce, as Vernon tells us sourly, he is the ideal "skategoat".
Foulmouthed and somewhat verbally-challenged, Vernon is nevertheless an engaging narrator, clever, caustic and occasionally poetic. The court-appointed psychiatrist paws him, his prom queen heartthrob betrays him, his mother and her friends are biting into their nine-millionth burrito — and on top of everything else, he receives junk mail on Death Row. "A sweepstakes letter that says I definitely won a million dollars; at least that's what it says on the envelope...Eight squillion valentines turned up for me, from sickos all over the world."
Vernon is also young, and very vulnerable. His mother herself is a heavy cross to bear, in more ways than literally: "It's like she planted a knife in my back when I was born, and now every ... noise she makes just gives it a turn...In the end it doesn't matter what words you say, you feel it on your blade. Like, `Wow, see that car?' `Well it's the same blue as that jacket you threw up on at the Christmas show, remember?' What I learned is that parents succeed by managing the database of your dumbness and your slime, ready for combat. They'll cut you down in a split ... second, make no mistake."
If the plot is fabulous — I just couldn't stop turning the pages — D.B.C. Pierre has worked magic in the character of young Vernon. If his acerbic wit is compelling, Vernon's protectiveness of his impossible mother, and his loyalty to his dead friend Jesus, are qualities that endear this modern-day Holden Caulfield to us. Vernon is unforgettable.
D.B.C. Pierre's debut novel was a surprise win at the Man Booker this year. Although the book was hailed in Man Bookerese as "a coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with modern America", reviewers in America were far from pleased. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times sourly dismissed it as an attempt at "insulting American stereotypes". No one had heard of Pierre before: which in itself is not surprising, because his real name is Peter Finlay. D.B.C. stands for Dirty But Clean, which is what this 40-something debut novelist, with a colourful past of drugs, deals and desperation behind him, aspires to be. Writing what was bound to be a gamble, much like Vernon writing in from the edge, Pierre has created a hilarious, haunting and eerily authentic voice for our times. Now if only someone would sit up and listen.
ANINDYA DAS GUPTA
Vernon God Little, D.B.C. Pierre, Penguin Books, in association with Faber and Faber, p.277, Pound 3.50.
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