Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

Consider the improbability of this: A man, born in Australia of English parents, grows up as a privileged rich kid in Mexico City, with a mansion, servants, luxury cars, exclusive private schools, and all that. As an adult, he enjoys a drug-fogged life as a jet-setter, living in the West Indies, Australia, and Ireland, among other places. Having cleaned up his act, he writes this, his first novel, at age 38. He chooses to write something of a rip-off of Catcher in the Rye, with a first person narration by a 15-year-old small-town boy from Central Texas, although he has no clue how such a boy really sounds. He includes all the derogatory stereotypes anyone ever had about Texans, and fills the novel to bursting with "the seven words they can't say on TV," to give it authenticity, I guess. And then the novel wins England's Booker Prize in 2003. Go figure!

I can only presume the judges that year were a bit miffed at Americans in general, and Texans in particularly, so that they relished the caricatures of Texas residents as bumbling, ignorant, racist, barbecue-obsessed, reality show-addicted, sex-crazed, inbred yokels. (Remember what was going on in 2003 and who the President was?)

Our protagonist is the only survivor when a bullied boy shoots and kills everyone in his classroom, including himself. Even though the narrator swears he had been sent on an errand by the teacher and was not even there at the time of the shooting, he is immediately arrested by the gung-ho police as being a partner in the massacre. With the "eyes of the nation" on their small town, residents rush to get their five minutes of fame by denouncing the boy for the television cameras, and he becomes convinced he will be convicted, so he high-tails it for Mexico.

From here on the plot gets even more surreal. Among other adsurdities, Texas death row becomes a television reality show, with viewers voting as to which inmate will be the next one to be executed.

Even if I weren't offended by this portrayal of Texas, I would recognize that the author's narrative voice is not at all authentic. His hero alternates between sounding uneducated and ignorant (using "ain't" and other substandard grammar, talking about not wanting to be a "skate goat"), and using words no American teenager would use, outside of exclusive private schools, perhaps. For example, he goes to a barber shop "behind the abattoir." What teenage boy in Texas has even heard this word. Heck, how many Americans of any age use this word? And here's a quote: "Infinite distance rolls by outside; spongy, darkened distance, like rug-lint balls on wet graham cracker." Do you know a 15-year-old who would say this? Heck, what does it even mean?

I keep being tempted to use some of those seven no-no words in talking about this novel, but I will resist.

To be fair, sometimes the author comes up with some really funny bits; I laughed out loud several times.

I have read many Booker Prize winners, and they are typically serious and contemplative. I don't feel that satiric and comedic books are necessarily inferior; I think Catch 22 is one of the greatest books ever, and I think it is quite possibly harder to write satirically than to write seriously. But I do think the author should really know his subject matter, and portray it convincingly, even if exaggeratedly. And I do find it offensive when an outsider makes fun. I can gently (or not) ridicule my own family, but you should beware if you do it.