Very Little Indeed

Don't believe the hype about this novel, Vernon God Little. I read it because the novel had been awarded the Booker Prize in 2003. However, I often wonder if the British and other Europeans don't favor novels that place Americans in a bad light. The author D.B.C. Pierre indulges in the worst sort of stereotypes about rednecks in Texas. Latinos and Mexico play a large role in the novel too, but Pierre is no better with these characters than he is with the "Anglos" in this work.
The protagonist Vernon Little is an adolescent supposedly cut in the mold of Holden Caufield, but he's nowhere as interesting or sophisticated as Caufield nor is Pierre anything like Salinger. Little has a most limited vocabulary too. He just cusses the whole time, which is not a problem but it is annoying when that is all the character is capable of. I wonder if Pierre thinks this is what Americans are like, especially American teens. Pierre is not much better at trying to accurately render Latinos on the Tex-Mex border or what Mexican citizens are like too. The supposed love interest is not handled much better and there is a definite undercurrent of misogyny too. All in all a disappointing read.

Czar