Vernon Subutex 1

A Novel

By: Virginie Despentes, Frank Wynne

Narrated by: Christopher Harper

Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

A “rock and roll Zola”: short-listed for the International Man Booker Prize, a European best seller, and the basis of a big-budget TV series

From the provocative writer and filmmaker Virginie Despentes comes volume one of her acclaimed trilogy of novels, Vernon Subutex - short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize. But who is Vernon Subutex?

Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Paris, where his name was legend throughout Paris. By the 2000s, however, with the arrival of the internet and the decline in CD and vinyl sales, his shop is struggling, like so many others. When it closes, Subutex finds himself with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Before long, his savings are gone, and when the mysterious rock star who had been covering his rent suddenly drops dead of a drug overdose, Subutex finds himself launched on an epic saga of couch-surfing, boozing, and coke-snorting before finally winding up homeless. Just as he resigns himself to life as a panhandler, a throwaway comment he once made on Facebook takes the internet by storm.

The word is out: Subutex is lugging around a bunch of VHS tapes shot by that same dead rock musician - his last recordings on this earth. Soon a crowd of wild characters, from screen writers to social media groupies, from porn stars to failed musicians to random misfits, are hot on Vernon's trail...but Vernon is none the wiser.

©2019 Frank Wynne (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Great narrator!

Couldn’t stop listening to this book! She is a brilliant writer. Loved the so accurate characters, and the love and humanity that goes with her writing

Need no 2 in english , now

Just finished, and the rest of trilogy is not available in english. Hurry up and read Chris.

Despentes is an amazing author

I'm not much for fiction, but I downloaded Vernon Subutex 1 because it was about a record store owner.
I've worked for over 30 years in the music business, and Despentes describes all the types of people that I've run into. In this case, they're French. Even if you don't care about obscure music and the people who love it, listen to this book. Ms. Despentes has been called a modern Emile Zola, they're right. Every character has their back story and thoughts described with insight and knowledge of human nature. I look forward to the English translation of Vernon #2 & #3.

Extreme

The snapshot lives lived in our 'modern' world are disturbing, but unfailingly true. Despentes has captured the sickness of our times. The sometimes unrelenting awfulness, broken by the injection of the flickering flame of humanity...Strong, hard, true.

Mind blowing!

This book made me think from points of view I never would never have imagined.

Interesting

That was quite something. Not sure about sone of the comments and the title/editorial text, but definitely interesting. I can understand anybody who finds something to dislike here - personally, I’m not interested in addict or decadence porn, or just porn. But here, the sex - and more: the use and meaning or missing meaning of sex - is retold from a female author often from a male perspective, read by a male voice. This allows for painfully precise descriptions and insights I simply don’t believe any male author is capable of - without the author itself or the book dragging the reader/listener into the mud. Another misgiving you could have is the extreme density of these insights - the events, characters. While any book is compacting reality, it is clear that the author build a lot of what she writes out of composites of ppl and events she knows (plus: imagines) - which is way beyond how dense and clear reality even in book form usually is. But she and her book come through these moments fine.

My idea of France is revolutionized

This was the best novel I've listened to in a while. So many characters seen from inside and out. A slide into homelessness that feels as though it's happening to you. A panoply of characters in the new France--Nazi thugs, porn stars, Islamists, traders, Trans people. Just a whole world! Waiting for the sequels to come to Audible!

Holy smokes

The writing is phenomenal. The rants and diatribes are amazing. The story itself is a little thin, with too much time spent on peripheral characters. It also is a very angry book. All of the side characters are pissed off at the world while the main character, whose life is falling apart, is just very stoically moving from one phase of his life to another.