Vernon Subutex I-III by Virginie Despentes
There are very few things in contemporary culture that remain underrated or under-hyped enough to be good. (Apologies to the cool writer girl I follow on Twitter who introduced me to these books, I’m blowing up the spot.) With that said, I will trust you with this introduction and do what you will with it.
Vernon Subutex himself is a down and out former record store owner whose unemployment has run dry; he’s been evicted, and relies on a string of characters from his past in the music industry to help him out. His possession of one piece of collateral, some final taped confessions from the recently deceased rock star Alex Bleach, starts a chain of events that accumulates a wide-ranging cast of characters: a reprehensible film producer, a lesbian hacker who goes by The Hyena, the devout Muslim daughter of deceased porn star Vodka Satana, a handful of neo-fascists and skinheads, a bunch of disappointed ex-girlfriends and current wives, and a homeless community that includes a secret lottery winner and a beguiling, monstrous woman named Olga and her dog, Attila-the-Fun. Among so many others.
Brutal, clueless, vain, cunning, violent, heartbroken, and searching, they are all drawn to the nostalgia that Vernon represents, along with the music and dancing that provide them the release that they crave. In their midst Vernon plods through the streets of Paris, increasingly disoriented and dissociative as his options whittle down and the city’s various tragedies and disasters grow larger and more frequent. The effect for the reader is like reading a headline about a mass shooting right before you walk into a birthday party. Shell-shocked, disturbed, there aren’t many options but to keep it moving and enter the smiling crowd of friends and strangers.
