Vernon God Little

Another high-school massacre; blighted lives and a hung-up teenager. But how much is Vernon G Little really involved? His neighbours, the local police and even his own mother, all manipulated by an ambitious repairman who makes himself main media spokesman, are quick to blame him, and his own unsavoury habits, friendship with a Mexican who's now dead and a traumatised teacher who can't or won't give him an alibi don't help. As evidence seemingly mounts against him, he makes off for Mexico, enlisting the help of the girl of his (dirty) dreams, but she too lets him down, betraying him to the police. Once he's rearrested, he finds the list of charges has grown alarmingly. Who will help this sassy and crude 15-year-old now? The story is peopled with grotesque characters, among them Vernon's mother, who has a strange inability to attend Vernon's court appearances (once because she is waiting for a fridge to be delivered), and her food-obsessed friends. The black humour can be very funny, in the court scenes, for example, where his first lawyer has an appealingly tenuous grasp of English and his second defender is initially successful like a parody of an American legal sitcom, but as Vernon comments on his bizarre experiences, the shock effect of the strong language and repetitive references to things like panty liners, sex and bowel movements tend to have a cumulatively repellent effect even as Vernon's plight becomes more desperate. Can this story be seen as an angry indictment of a world which takes things at face value? It is certainly not a comfortable or particularly enjoyable read. (Kirkus UK)