"Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex trilogy is the zeitgeistiest thing I ever read. Everything about it is contemporary, right down to the fearless woman author who doesn't think of herself as a feminist and gives an impression at least in interviews of habitually killing rapists . . . [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" 
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.

Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Despentes, Virginie

Humor & Satire

FSG Originals

Part social epic, part punk-rock thriller, writer/filmmaker Virginie Despentes'sVernon Subutex trilogy continues the Man Booker International Prize shortlisted sprawling tale of an ex-record shop clerk's celebrity fortunes and misfortunes. Rock star Alex Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It's a secret that concerns several people, but the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench. He has tapes of Alex that will shake the world. The hunt is on, and the wolves are closing in. Meanwhile, the cast of lovers and killers in Vernon's orbit is in violent disarray. Aïcha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, the porn star Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Céleste thinks of her plan. Céleste wants Aïcha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex's gang of disciples. The Hyena wants to find the Bleach tapes. She wants to untangle her complicated feelings about Anaïs, her boss's assistant. And speaking of her boss, she does not want Laurent Dopalet to discover how badly she has double-crossed him. Big-shot producer Laurent Dopalet wants the Hyena to find and destroy the Bleach tapes. He wants to forget he ever knew Vodka Satana. He wants people to stop graffitiing his apartment with ludicrous allegations. Above all, he wants people to understand: NONE OF THIS IS HIS FAULT. "Virginie Despentes'sVernon 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"

Vernon Subutex 2: A Novel

One ofVulture's most anticipated books of 2021 Paris may burn, the world may crumble, but Vernon Subutex shall reign supreme!--The final installment of writer/filmmakerVirginie Despentes's Man Booker International Prize shortlisted punk-rock trilogy. 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 each other. 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 era will be forced to confront one another one last time. In the wake of all this chaos and hate, the question will rise again: After all he's beenthrough, who is Vernon Subutex? And the answer: He is the future. Virginie Despentes's epochal trilogy ends withVernon Subutex 3--in fire, blood, and even forgiveness. But not everyone will survive to see the dawning of the golden age of Subutex.

Vernon Subutex 3: A Novel

Out of print in the U.S. for far too long, writer and filmmaker Virginie Despentes's autobiographical feminist manifesto is back--in an improved English translation--"blistering with anger, and so precisely phrased that it feels an injustice to summarize it" (Nadja Spiegelman,New York Review of Books). I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the hysterics, the freaks, all those excluded from the great meat market of female flesh. And if I'm starting here it's because I want to be crystal clear: I'm not here to make excuses, I'm not here to bitch. I wouldn't swap places with anyone because being Virginie Despentes seems to me a more interesting gig than anything else out there. Powerful, provocative, and personal,King Kong Theory is a candid account of how the author ofBaise-Moi andVernon Subutex came to be Virginie Despentes. Drawing from personal experience, Despentes shatters received ideas about rape and prostitution, and explodes common attitudes about sex and gender. An autobiography, a call for revolt, a manifesto for a new punk feminism,King Kong Theory is Despentes's most beloved and reviled work, and is here made available again in a brilliant new translation by Frank Wynne.

King Kong Theory

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Dear Dickhead: A Novel

Literary

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Baise-Moi is one of the most controversial French novels of recent years, a punk fantasy that takes female rage to its outer limits. Now the basis for a hit underground film which was banned in France, Baise-Moi is a searing story of two women on a rampage that is part Thelma and Louise, part Viking conquest. Manu and Nadine have had all they can take. Manu has been brutally raped, and determines it's not worth leaving anything precious lying vulnerable -- including her very self. She teams up with Nadine, a nihilist who watches pornography incessantly, and they enact their own version of les vols et les viols (rape and pillage) -- they lure men sexually, use them up, then rob and kill them. Drawing from the spiky cadences of the Sex Pistols and the murderous eroticism of Georges Bataille or Dennis Cooper, Baise-Moi is a shocking, accomplished, and truly unforgettable novel.

Baise-Moi (Rape Me)

Contemporary

GROVE PRESS

Vernon Subutex is still on the streets. Hanging around with alcohol-soaked Charles in the Parc de Buttes Chaumont, feverish and hallucinating, he is completely cut off from the wider world and unaware that he is the subject of a frantic search by a crowd of hunters hot on the trail of the last recordings of the famous dead musician, Alex Bleach. But just imagine that one of these hunters finally gets hold of the precious tapes. What might they contain? The answer could have shocking - almost apocalyptic - consequences.

Vernon Subutex Two

MacLehose Press

Rock star Alexandre Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It's a secret that concerns several people, but the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench in the parc des Buttes Chaumont. Aïcha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Céleste thinks of her plan. Céleste wants Aïcha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex's gang of disciples. The Hyena wants to find the Bleach tapes. She wants to untangle her complicated feelings about Anaïs, her boss' assistant. And speaking of her boss, she does not want Laurent Dopalet to discover how badly she has double-crossed him. Laurent Dopalet wants the Hyena to find and destroy the Bleach tapes. He wants to forget he ever knew Vodka Satana. He wants people to stop graffitiing his apartment with ludicrous allegations. Above all, he wants people to understand: NONE OF THIS IS HIS FAULT. THE SEQUEL TO VERNON SUBUTEX 1 , SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2018. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

Although it means leaving behind the community of disciples who have followed him on his travels and assembled at his raves and gatherings, Vernon Subutex is compelled to return to Paris to visit the dentist.
Once back in the city, he learns that Charles, his old friend from his days on the Paris streets, has died and left him half of a lottery win. But when Vernon returns to his disciples with news of this windfall, it does not take long before his followers start to turn on each other, and his good fortune provokes ruptures in his once harmonious community.
Meanwhile, storm clouds are gathering for Aïcha and Céleste: Laurent Dopalet is determined to make them 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 will be forced to a reckoning with each other.

Vernon Subutex Three

With humor, rage, and confessional detail, Virginie Despentesin her own words more King Kong than Kate Moss”delivers a highly charged account of women’s lives today. She explodes common attitudes about sex and gender, and shows how modern beauty myths are ripe for rebelling against. Using her own experiences of rape, prostitution, and working in the porn industry as a jumping-off point, she creates a new space for all those who can’t or won’t obey the rules.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The Feminist Press at CUNY

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Books by Despentes, Virginie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Despentes, Virginie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel

Vernon Subutex 2: A Novel

Vernon Subutex 3: A Novel

King Kong Theory

Dear Dickhead: A Novel

Baise-Moi (Rape Me)

Vernon Subutex Two

Vernon Subutex Two

Vernon Subutex Three

King Kong Theory