Vernon God Little

DBC Pierre · b. 1961 · Australia

Why it matters

A Texan teenager wrongly swept up as an accomplice in a friend's school shooting flees toward Mexico while American media turns his trial into a circus. Pierre's manic satire of tabloid culture and capital punishment won the Booker on his very first novel.

At a glance

Manic, slang-heavy first-person narration and satirical excess ask readers to keep pace with its own chaos.