The Third Brother
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A haunting and “compulsively readable” tale of brotherly love, family tragedy, and national grief from the bestselling author of Twelve (Booklist).
Mike was a lucky child: a vacation house on Long Island, famous family friends, an Ivy League education, and an older brother, Lyle, who looked out for him. Now it’s 2001, and Mike is working in Thailand on a magazine internship. Sent on assignment to Bangkok, Mike finds the city electric with violence and hedonism. Nothing goes according to plan. When terrible news about his brother arrives from home, Mike rushes back to the States. Lyle is unstable and suffering from visions of an imaginary third brother. And then, a clear September morning is broken by catastrophe.
While the Twin Towers burn, Mike makes an epic trek through the ghostly streets of New York to find and save Lyle. From Patpong to the World Trade Center to Harvard Yard, as his life and country come apart, Mike struggles to find his footing and go on. The joke, it turns out, is on him.
“[McDonell’s] treatment of the 9/11 catastrophe is masterly.”—The Washington Post
“Engrossing, with indelible scenes and a protagonist to care about.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McDonell's first novel, published when he was 17, was an acclaimed 300,000-copy bestseller a daunting achievement for this emotionally intricate but iffy sophomore effort to match. The author of Twelve, now 21, is a bit too experienced to be a boy wonder, but he's not quite a mature writer, a 'twixt phase that bedevils this novel about tragic family secrets, sibling madness and the abrupt onset of adult responsibility. Part one of the rat-a-tat-tat tale most chapters are two or three pages is set in Thailand, where Mike, a well-bred Harvard freshman interning for the summer at a Hong Kong magazine, is researching a story on stoned Western travelers. Part two takes place back in Manhattan as September 11, 2001, nears: Mike's quarrelsome parents are dead in a house fire and his revered older brother, perhaps responsible for the blaze, is prone to paralyzing hallucinations. McDonnell has a knack for capturing place with sharp-eyed, vivid prose: scenes set in Bangkok's whirl of sex and drugs, and his evocation of 9/11 disbelief and horror are both charged with a reality that's reportorial in its authenticity. But the two halves of the novel, linked loosely by Mike's search for the truth about his family, don't quite gel.
