How long is it?
277 pages in the Harcourt 2004 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
Vernon God Little
Highly regardedBooker Prize, 2003Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 37 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 277 pagesHarcourt · 2004
- Reading time
- 5 h 30 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Brisk
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 5 h 30 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 12 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Fifteen-year-old Vernon Little becomes a suspect after his best friend kills sixteen schoolmates and himself in Martirio, Texas. The town wants someone alive to blame, and a man claiming to be a television reporter offers to tell Vernon's side. While his mother welcomes the attention, Vernon imagines escaping to Mexico with an older girl he knows, but his attempts to explain himself keep supplying the adults around him with ammunition.
Reader notes
Raucous and deliberately grotesque, the satire unfolds in Vernon's inventive, profanity-filled narration. Police, neighbors and television crews appear as broad caricatures, and the persistent gross-out humor can become wearing. The school shooting and suicide underpin the comedy throughout.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Experimental · Witty
- Tone
- Absurdist · Dark · Irreverent · Satirical
- Structure
- Linear
- Driven by
- Character · Plot · Voice
- Point of view
- First person
- Setting
- Martirio, Texas
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Coming of age
- Isolation
- Justice
- Knowledge and truth
- Power
- Technology and society
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- Mild
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Booker Prize, 2003
- Costa/Whitbread Award, 2003
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Harcourt · 2004 · Paperback. ISBN 9780156029988.
How long does it take to read Vernon God Little?
About 5 hours 30 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 277-page Harcourt edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
D. B. C. Pierre
D. B. C. Pierre is the pen name of Peter Warren Finlay, an Australian writer born in South Australia in 1961 and raised largely in Mexico. His first novel, Vernon God Little, draws on the landscape of the Mexican border in its story of a Texas teenager blamed after a school shooting. The novel established Pierre as a writer of dark, absurd comedy shaped by conversational prose and a distrust of public spectacle. It has since been translated widely and adapted for the stage by Tanya Ronder.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Harcourt
- Publication year
- 2004
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 277
- ISBN
- 9780156029988
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2003
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Coming of age · Contemporary literary · Social novel · Absurdism · Dark comedy · Picaresque · Satire
- Editions
- 14
- Languages
- 3 (English, Hebrew, Russian)
The catalog does not yet include a matching edition. Details may differ between editions.