Vernon Subutex 1 cover

Vernon Subutex 1

by Virginie Despentes

Vernon Subutex, ancien disquaire à la dérive, ne peut guère compter que sur Alex Bleach pour l'aider à payer ses factures. Quand celui-ci meurt d'overdose, Vernon est expulsé de son appartement parisien et doit se faire héberger à droite et à gauche, sans se douter que tout le monde le recherche afin de mettre la main sur la vidéo que lui a laissée la pop star avant de mourir. Prix Anaïs Nin 2015. As if she were a manic, female counterpart to Michel Houellebecq, Virginie Despentes's novels overflow with violence, second-wave feminism, and restlessness to the point of mania. As she declared in her memoir-cum-manifesto, King Kong Theory, "being Virginie Despentes is a more interesting business than anything else going on out there." Her first novel, Baise-moi, was turned into a film full of murderous women and rape; her last novel, Apocalypse bébé (see WLT, Mar. 2011, 60), was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and won the Prix Renaudot; and now she is in the middle of a trilogy.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?