Frankly, the only reason I picked this book was that the title of this book, and the name of the author (what on earth is ’DBC’?!) intrigued me. And that’s the best thing I did in quite a while.
So caustic, I wonder why it didn’t burn my fingers. Mindblowingly enthralling, the pace picks up from the first chapter and never lets go. Its the story of a typical, acne-ridden, skeptical Yankee teenager, who’s wrongly charged with murder. The media hounding, high handedness and stupidity of low-profile, townsy cops, the hollowness of typical single mothers in small-town America, the ’in’justness of the electric chair - its a virtual social satire of American society.
The humour is vitriolic, but it had me totally gripped. The ending is a tad cliched, but to DBC Pierre’s credit, it is unpredictable until the very last. A different read, written from the heart, and worth every penny. Not for the faint-hearted. This book reminds me of Salinger’s classic - ’Catcher in the Rye’. The latter, in comparison, is smoother and simmers less.