Vernon god little
Emotionally manipulated by his painfully insecure mother and her grotesque, calculating 'friends', beaten by his now deceased father, trapped in the stifling claustrophobia of the barbeque sauce capital of central Texas, he is a character in search of his own humanity. 'I mean - what kind of **** life is this?' is his and the book's frequent lament.
His quest is not helped by his unfortunate habit of being in the wrong place at the right time. When his Mexican friend Jesus shoots dead 16 students at their high school before killing himself, Vernon is left under a gathering cloud of suspicion. The damaged, paranoid town needs a scapegoat (or a 'skate goat', as the ill-educated Vernon calls it), and he fits the bill.
His escape route is inept, unconvincing and dogged by the Fate he so loathes. His life's path twists and turns with the book's energetic, if not entirely credible narrative.
Some readers will be offended by Vernon God Little. The language is coarse, profane and aggressive. The imagery is both beautiful and brutal. Vernon's idea of deliverance is sordid and shallow.
Yet the novel's vulgarity is a thin mask for its underlying desperation. Vernon is the product of brutalising circumstances which have conspired to dehumanise him. His story is, accordingly, the ugly product of a damaged child. In spite of who he is, the reader slowly grows to like him.
The Christians and Christian imagery in this story are as crude and corrupted as everyone and everything else. The dark shade of his (provocatively named) murderous friend, Jesus, haunts Vernon throughout his journey, something from which he desperately tries to free himself.
Yet in his pathetic struggle to escape to a future in which he might flourish rather than just survive, Vernon is actually striving for life to the full in the only way he knows how.
Nick Spencer
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