Vernon Subutex
Author:
Virginie Despentes
About this Series
Part social epic, part punk-rock thriller, writer/filmmaker Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex trilogy, shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, is a sprawling human comedy taking in all strata of French society with a provocative and revealing eye toward modern culture on the edge of disaster.
Ex-record shop clerk Vernon Subutex is lugging around a bunch of VHS tapes shot by a dead rock musician—his last recordings on this earth, potentially full of explosive revelations. Now a crowd of wild characters from all strata of French society, from screen writers to social media groupies, from porn stars to failed musicians to random misfits, are descending on Paris and hot on Vernon’s trail . . . but hapless, homeless Vernon is none the wiser.
“Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex trilogy is the zeitgeistiest thing I ever read . . . [It] has dupes and assholes and racists and the people they hate and a stunning diversity of internal monologues and trans true love. Like the last decade, it searches for a happy ending that isn’t merely personal and can’t find it . . . These novels with their depth and detail kick TV’s sorry ass.” —Nell Zink, Bustle, “The Best Books Of The 2010s”
“The best multi-volume fiction series since Elena Ferrante”—Fiametta Rocco
