The Third Brother
Grove, 2005
Buy: Powells.com

"One of the best and most vivid evocations of [September 11] that I've read." —Jay McInerney, The Guardian

“McDonell is forging himself a place as this generation’s champion of angst-riddled youth...A terrific novelist already, McDonell is close to a spot at the table occupied by the likes of Barth, Bellow, Roth and Updike.” —Jon Land, The Providence Journal

Nick McDonell’s debut novel, Twelve, was a publishing sensation. It was an international best seller, garnished phenomenal reviews, and established its seventeen-year-old author as an important literary voice. In The Third Brotherem>, McDonell delivers another remarkable novel, a haunting tale of brotherly love, family tragedy, and national grief.

Mike was a lucky child: a vacation house on Long Island, famous family friends, an Ivy League education, and also an older brother, Lyle, who looked out for him and protected him from his parents’ volatile marriage.

Mike is spending the summer working for a magazine in Hong Kong when his editor sends him to Bangkok to report on the drug-tourism crackdown. But Mike’s real mission is to find Christopher Dorr, a brilliant journalist and old friend of his parent who has gone AWOL. This is the beginning of a vertiginous journey that propels Mike into seedy nights in Thailand and back to New York, to a home wrecked by violence.