For another book I read, I chose Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre. Vernon Little is an average fifteen year old living in a small town in Texas with his mother. However, one fateful day at school, Vernon witnesses his best and only friend Jesus Navarro flip out and shoot sixteen kids before taking his own life. Vernon is immediately pinned as an accomplice by the townspeople, police, and media. After such a horrific tragedy, all of these people demanded someone to blame, or someone that was at least alive that had something to do with it. Unfortunately, they choose Vernon as their scapegoat, despite him being completely innocent. For a while, Vernon goes in and out of police custody for questioning, but even while at home he is never left alone. Vernon's mom is the kind of woman that either isn't too bright or simply chooses to ignore what is occurring and instead goes on living like nothing is happening. While at home, a reporter known as Lally tries to befriend Vernon and convince him to tell the story to the public through him. Lally says that he knows Vernon is innocent and he could help the situation by letting the public know what was going on. After a while without much happening, Lally moves in with Vernon's mom and him after making Vernon's mom think she was in love with him. As soon as he is in, he immediately starts being a complete jerk towards Vernon and starts plotting to use Vernon as a scapegoat and get a huge story out of it. After a period of time where this continues and Vernon keeps getting questioned by the police and judge, Vernon is made to see a psychiatrist to be evaluated. When he gets there, the doctor turns out to be some sort of molester, and before anything happens, Vernon leaves the office and refuses to go back. After that, Lally keeps making things worse for Vernon, and it becomes clear that nobody is believing him, so Vernon decides he needs to leave town. While he is going, Lally sees him and Vernon punches Lally in the face and leaves while he is down. After he is gone, Lally calls the sheriff and when he gets there Lally kills him and makes it look like Vernon did it. Vernon leaves town towards Houston to try and meet up with Taylor Furgeson, a girl he has had a crush on since he met her when she was a senior and he saw her at a party. As soon as Vernon meets up with her at a mall, they get to talking and it seems like Taylor kind of likes him. However, Taylor's aunt meets up with them, and Vernon recognizes her as one of his mom's best friends, so he runs off. A day or so later Vernon ends up in Mexico after crossing the border to try and escape. He starts hitchhiking, and gets picked up by a Mexican trucker who befriends him. The trip they go on leads to stopping at bars and getting drunk until they pass out, and eventually coming to the truckers home in a tourist city on the coast, where Vernon is welcomed to stay for a while. Vernon starts talking to Taylor on the phone, and she wants to send him money to help him out. While watching the news, Vernon's picture is always up and new news that he had apparently been witnessed in the past week or so committing around thirty murders all around the state of Texas, which obviously never happened. On the day he was expecting the money to come, instead Taylor showed up herself. They go to a hotel, and start doing stuff when Taylor keeps asking Vernon to tell her how he killed all those people as if she thought it was cool, and finally to get her to stop and just do stuff with him he says that he did it. Turns out that Taylor had a microphone and Lally had convinced her that she had a future in media and that if she did this for him he would help her. So then the police came and brought Vernon to jail back in Texas while Lally looked like a hero. After being in jail for a while, Vernon starts to mature and become more responsible. Then, after his trial, Vernon is tried innocent of all the random deaths across Texas, but guilty for the sixteen at his school, and he is given the death penalty. On death row, another convict who everybody in the jail, including the guards respect talks to Vernon about life and all sorts of things, and how if Vernon wanted to fix things, the way to get what you want in life is to give people what they want in order to get what you want. Meanwhile, Lally has come up with this crazy scheme to have internet showings of the prisoners and have the public vote on which one on death row will go first, and then show the death and all this random crazy stuff, which would all make lots of money because criminals and television make money, and the money would help pay for the government to keep the prisoners. Vernon is thinking about what he learned from LaSalle, the other convict, and starts thinking about everyone he knows and what they want the most. He comes up with everything, even for people he hates like Lally, and sends them all letters helping them out with what they want. After they all receive their letters, Vernon is chosen to go next to die. While he is being injected, Vernon has an out of body experience where he sees all of those people getting what they want, and then turning out in Vernon's favor. He told Lally where another weapon was, so Lally went to get it, and next to it was a bottle of ginseng extract that Vernon had taken from Lally to hide LSD in. Lally unsuspectingly drinks it and starts walking around the town all messed up going crazy on acid with a gun that now has his fingerprints all over it. The deputy sheriff knew from Vernon's letter that something was going to happen that would help her career and she went patrolling and saw all of this. Taylor knew that something was going to happen that would make her a huge reporter if she got the story, so when they all showed up, Lally freaked out and shot at Taylor and then the deputy shot him. Meanwhile, Vernon's lawyer got a letter saying where evidence that Vernon was gone at the time that Jesus was doing the shooting, and had called the people in charge of his execution. Then Vernon woke up in the hospital, alive, to find out his pardon had come through, and Vernon was free to go.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Vernon God Little Summary
For another book I read, I chose Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre. Vernon Little is an average fifteen year old living in a small town in Texas with his mother. However, one fateful day at school, Vernon witnesses his best and only friend Jesus Navarro flip out and shoot sixteen kids before taking his own life. Vernon is immediately pinned as an accomplice by the townspeople, police, and media. After such a horrific tragedy, all of these people demanded someone to blame, or someone that was at least alive that had something to do with it. Unfortunately, they choose Vernon as their scapegoat, despite him being completely innocent. For a while, Vernon goes in and out of police custody for questioning, but even while at home he is never left alone. Vernon's mom is the kind of woman that either isn't too bright or simply chooses to ignore what is occurring and instead goes on living like nothing is happening. While at home, a reporter known as Lally tries to befriend Vernon and convince him to tell the story to the public through him. Lally says that he knows Vernon is innocent and he could help the situation by letting the public know what was going on. After a while without much happening, Lally moves in with Vernon's mom and him after making Vernon's mom think she was in love with him. As soon as he is in, he immediately starts being a complete jerk towards Vernon and starts plotting to use Vernon as a scapegoat and get a huge story out of it. After a period of time where this continues and Vernon keeps getting questioned by the police and judge, Vernon is made to see a psychiatrist to be evaluated. When he gets there, the doctor turns out to be some sort of molester, and before anything happens, Vernon leaves the office and refuses to go back. After that, Lally keeps making things worse for Vernon, and it becomes clear that nobody is believing him, so Vernon decides he needs to leave town. While he is going, Lally sees him and Vernon punches Lally in the face and leaves while he is down. After he is gone, Lally calls the sheriff and when he gets there Lally kills him and makes it look like Vernon did it. Vernon leaves town towards Houston to try and meet up with Taylor Furgeson, a girl he has had a crush on since he met her when she was a senior and he saw her at a party. As soon as Vernon meets up with her at a mall, they get to talking and it seems like Taylor kind of likes him. However, Taylor's aunt meets up with them, and Vernon recognizes her as one of his mom's best friends, so he runs off. A day or so later Vernon ends up in Mexico after crossing the border to try and escape. He starts hitchhiking, and gets picked up by a Mexican trucker who befriends him. The trip they go on leads to stopping at bars and getting drunk until they pass out, and eventually coming to the truckers home in a tourist city on the coast, where Vernon is welcomed to stay for a while. Vernon starts talking to Taylor on the phone, and she wants to send him money to help him out. While watching the news, Vernon's picture is always up and new news that he had apparently been witnessed in the past week or so committing around thirty murders all around the state of Texas, which obviously never happened. On the day he was expecting the money to come, instead Taylor showed up herself. They go to a hotel, and start doing stuff when Taylor keeps asking Vernon to tell her how he killed all those people as if she thought it was cool, and finally to get her to stop and just do stuff with him he says that he did it. Turns out that Taylor had a microphone and Lally had convinced her that she had a future in media and that if she did this for him he would help her. So then the police came and brought Vernon to jail back in Texas while Lally looked like a hero. After being in jail for a while, Vernon starts to mature and become more responsible. Then, after his trial, Vernon is tried innocent of all the random deaths across Texas, but guilty for the sixteen at his school, and he is given the death penalty. On death row, another convict who everybody in the jail, including the guards respect talks to Vernon about life and all sorts of things, and how if Vernon wanted to fix things, the way to get what you want in life is to give people what they want in order to get what you want. Meanwhile, Lally has come up with this crazy scheme to have internet showings of the prisoners and have the public vote on which one on death row will go first, and then show the death and all this random crazy stuff, which would all make lots of money because criminals and television make money, and the money would help pay for the government to keep the prisoners. Vernon is thinking about what he learned from LaSalle, the other convict, and starts thinking about everyone he knows and what they want the most. He comes up with everything, even for people he hates like Lally, and sends them all letters helping them out with what they want. After they all receive their letters, Vernon is chosen to go next to die. While he is being injected, Vernon has an out of body experience where he sees all of those people getting what they want, and then turning out in Vernon's favor. He told Lally where another weapon was, so Lally went to get it, and next to it was a bottle of ginseng extract that Vernon had taken from Lally to hide LSD in. Lally unsuspectingly drinks it and starts walking around the town all messed up going crazy on acid with a gun that now has his fingerprints all over it. The deputy sheriff knew from Vernon's letter that something was going to happen that would help her career and she went patrolling and saw all of this. Taylor knew that something was going to happen that would make her a huge reporter if she got the story, so when they all showed up, Lally freaked out and shot at Taylor and then the deputy shot him. Meanwhile, Vernon's lawyer got a letter saying where evidence that Vernon was gone at the time that Jesus was doing the shooting, and had called the people in charge of his execution. Then Vernon woke up in the hospital, alive, to find out his pardon had come through, and Vernon was free to go.
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4 comments:
I dont know if we've read different versions of the book but if there's only one, you've got a lot of your facts askew. Its Taylor Figueroa (not Fergusson) and Leona Dunt is her cousin, not aunt. Vernon manages to give all those people what they want by using his last phone calls before being executed. He doesn't wake up in a hospital room, but in the same gurney he was to be administered the lethal injection in.
There's many more but the main plot summary seems reasonably accurate.
nice summary
The end is more complex than this. Did you notice that he is in fact trying to protect his mother? The gun is hers and she killed his father with it. If you look closely, the father is probably buried under the bench in the garden.
The end is more complex than this. Did you notice that he is in fact trying to protect his mother? The gun is hers and she killed his father with it. If you look closely, the father is probably buried under the bench in the garden.
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