Vernon Subutex Three

The final volume of Virginie Despentes' searing trilogy of urban life in a time of turmoil and uncertainty.

Invigorating ... there isn't really anything else like it right now

A literary phenomenon . . . [an] outrageous, often funny and frequently foul-mouthed trilogy

Brings the story of Vernon to a sometimes bleak, often very funny and possibly optimistic conclusion

Despentes' writing is intelligent, outspoken, witty, shocking, propulsive and streetwise

Raw and rewarding

Oddly magnificent

Despentes' achievement is French realism rebooted : a modern-day Comédie humaine stacked with profanity and fury

Either you're already onboard with this series and need no convincing, or you've somehow missed the fact that a cool French writer has been pumping out hilarious and corrosive novels about contemporary urban life at the center and fringes of Paris. Despentes writes like Armistead Maupin, but about aging Gen-Xers instead of hippies and New Agers.

Three addictive, intelligent volumes . Comedy, a way with words, and the collision of registers of language combine to make Vernon irresistible

Reflecting our chaotic times, Vernon Subutex 3 is a powerful, shocking, captivating work . Despentes completes her epic with a rare mastery. Where will she take us next?

A zigzagging novel that likes to let the intrigue wander, all the better to tug it back by the hair a few portraits later

A final volume even more explosive than the previous ones

An analysis of a startling harshness, which does not lessen the relentless, furious humanity pulsing through every page, every sentence

One of the most striking literary epics of the early 21st century

VIRGINIE DESPENTES is a writer and filmmaker. Her first novel, Baise-Moi was published in 1992 and adapted for film in 2000. She is the author of over fifteen further novels, including Apocalypse Baby (2010) and Bye Bye Blondie (2004), and the autobiographical work, King Kong Theory (2006). She won the Prix de Flore in 1998 for Les Jolies Choses , the 2010 Prix Renaudot for Apocalypse Baby and Vernon Subutex One won the Prix Anaïs Nin in 2015, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International in 2018.