Vernon Little, the 15-year-old narrator of DBC Pierre’s debut novel, in fact has the middle name Gregory. The “God” part only enters the equation towards the end of the story, when Vernon is on death row in a Texas jail.

At the outset, Vernon is under mild but persistent suspicion after a gun massacre at his high school has left 16 dead. The gunman was his friend Jesus (pronounced, of course, “Hay-zoos”), driven to anger by homophobic taunting and other circumstances that are only revealed at a late stage. But, since Jesus shot himself, the authorities require what Vernon calls a “skate-goat”, and blubbery Deputy Gurie wants to try and prove Vernon was an accessory.

To make things worse, Vernon’s widowed mom is sleeping with a bogus television reporter from out of town, one Lally Ledesma. Lally is actually a TV repairman, but with a stolen video camera he makes a report on the “tragedy”, which he sells to the local TV station. To keep the money coming, he decides to frame Vernon.

Lally hypes the manhunt into international news, earning so much from it that, by the time Vernon is caught, he owns the TV network and has exclusive rights to the trial. He also owns the privatised prison service, and makes death row into a money-spinning “reality” show like Big Brother.

Pierre’s problem is that, in some ways, the American criminal justice system is beyond satire, as is the reality-TV phenomenon. The novel’s exaggerations are caustically funny, but do not make any very fresh points. Stronger elements are Vernon’s authentic adolescent voice, forever passing on hard-won but incomplete bits of wisdom, and the witty portrayal of life in his dreadful home town.

VERNON GOD LITTLE by DBC Pierre

Faber
£12.99 pp279

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