Synopses & Reviews
Paris may burn, the world may crumble, but Vernon Subutex shall reign supreme!
As storm clouds gather, portending a final reckoning, ersatz rave-cult leader Vernon Subutex decides to return to Paris. Even if it means leaving behind his disciples. He has to. He's got a dentist's appointment.
Back in the city, he learns that an old friend from his days homeless on the Paris streets has died and left him half of a lottery win. But when Vernon returns to his commune with news of this windfall, it's not long before his disciples turn on one another. Such good fortune does not accord with the principles Vernon has handed down.
Meanwhile, the monstrous film producer Laurent Dopalet is determined to make Aïcha and Céleste pay for their attack on him, whatever it takes and whoever gets hurt. And before long, the whole of Paris will be reeling in the wake of the terrorist atrocities of 2015 and 2016, and all the characters in this kaleidoscopic portrait of a city and an era will be forced to confront one another one last time. In the wake of this chaos and hate, the question will rise again: After all he's been through, who is Vernon Subutex? And the answer: He is the future.
Virginie Despentes's epochal trilogy ends here — in fire, blood, and even forgiveness. But not everyone will survive to see the dawning of the golden age of Subutex.
Review
"The long, wild ride of France's most unlikely lothario reaches its lurid climax... [an] absorbing saga about the evolution of the dispossessed." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Vernon Subutex is written as if to act not as literature exactly, in its typical arena, but rather head-to-head with the dominant culture... That logic of multiplication and diversity, the scale and the frenzy of invention in this trilogy, and Despentes's own larger-than-life resourcefulness all have an aspect of horror, suggesting in their negative the vastness and intractability of the power in her sights." Jacqueline Feldman, The Nation
Review
"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
About the Author
Virginie Despentes is a writer and filmmaker. She worked in an independent record store in the early 1990s, was a sex worker, and published her first novel, Baise-moi, when she was twenty-three. She adapted the novel for the screen in 2000, codirecting with the porn star Coralie Trinh Thi. Upon release, it became the first film to be banned in France in twenty-eight years. Despentes is the author of more than fifteen other works, including Apocalypse Baby, Bye Bye Blondie, Pretty Things, and the essay collection, King Kong Theory.
Frank Wynne has translated the work of many authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Boualem Sansal, Frédéric Beigbeder, and the late Ivoirian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma. He won the International IMPAC Literary Award with Houellebecq for The Elementary Particles.