Vernon God Little: The Play (NHB Modern Plays) - Softcover

D. B. C. Pierre; Tanya Ronder (adaptation)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848421737 ISBN 13: 9781848421738

Publisher: Nick Hern Books, 2011

Synopsis

An updated edition of Tanya Ronder's darkly riotous, superbly fast-talking play, adapted from the Booker Prize-winning novel by DBC Pierre. Published alongside the revival at London's Young Vic theatre as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. Vernon Little is fifteen years old and lives with his mother in Martirio, a flea-bitten Texan town. His best friend just massacred sixteen of their classmates before killing himself. The town wants vengeance and turns its sights on Vernon.

About this title

Review

If there's any justice, it is only a matter of time before the work of the curiously-named DBC Pierre becomes essential reading for anyone interested in cutting-edge writing today. Vernon God Little is a book that has a totally individual (and very quirky) identity, from a writer with a finger on the pulse of contemporary society (particularly its less comfortable aspects). Pierre is also a satirical writer in the vein of such talents as Terry Southern, and there is a manic quality to his work that makes the experience of reading him both disorienting and exhilarating. As a first novel, this is a remarkable achievement.

Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his hole-in-the-wall town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing (rather than the real culprit, a friend of Vernon's). Eulalio Ledesma is his particular nemesis, manipulating things so that Vernon becomes the fulcrum for the bizarre and vengeful impulses of the townspeople of Martirio. After a truly surrealistic set of events, Vernon finds himself heading for a fateful assignation in Mexico with the delectable Taylor Figueros (everyone in the book has names as odd as the author's).

By setting his novel in the barbecue-sauce capital of Central Texas, Pierre ensures that his narrative is going to be some distance from naturalistic writing. And as a scalpel-like satirical incision into the mores of contemporary America, reality TV and media hysteria, Vernon God Little often reads like a fractured modern-day take on such novels as John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. --Barry Forshaw

Review

If ever there was an answer to the criticism that theatre is moribund and middle-aged then this production is it... Full of youthful bite and brutal satire of consumer and celebrity culture --Guardian

Tanya Ronder's clever, fluent, and highly enjoyable theatrical adaptation --Independent

Edition details

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1848421737
• ISBN 13: 9781848421738
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 102