Monday, December 7, 2009

On the Seventh Day ...

Okay ...
Too biblical, and a somewhat irreverent reference; however, my pick for day seven is Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre.

Set in small town, trailer-park central, Texas, USA, this is a story about how Vernon Gregory Little's life has been turned upside-down after his friend, Jesus Navarro, commits a Columbine-style massacre at his school.
This no-name town becomes the center of a media frenzy and a hungry-for-fame hack reporter, Eulalio Ledesma (yes, they all have weird names in the book!), manipulates events to look like Vernon was the perpetrator of the school killing.
Vernon heads to Mexico, Against All Odds-style to escape trial and possible death row with Taylor Figueros. As you can imagine, he doesn't escape and is represented by a Johnny Cochran-style big-shot lawyer
This is a slicing satire about American media, reality TV, fifteen-minute-famers, death row, and tragedy becoming a media orgy. And it's one of the funniest novels I've ever read in the midst of it all. I laughed out loud from beginning to end, and I sure wish this would be required reading when it comes to media ethics.
Writing a novel is hard work.
Writing comedy, real comedy, is an art.
Plus, Vernon is the best anti-hero I've ever read. And he's always nice to his mom (who's worth about as much as her latest perm).

READ. THIS. BOOK!!

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