The Third Brother, Nick McDonell
The Third Brother, Nick McDonell
List: $15.99 | Sale: $11.20
Club: $7.99

The Third Brother

Author: Nick McDonell

Narrator: William Dufris

Unabridged: 5 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/15/2005


Synopsis

The highly anticipated second novel from the author of the internationally best-selling Twelve

Nick McDonell's Twelve created a sensation around the world, establishing its seventeen-year-old author as one of the new and important voices of his generation. The book sold over 300,000 copies, was published in twenty-four countries, and was hailed by The New York Times as "fast as speed, relentless as acid." The Third Brother is his highly anticipated second novel.

"The story is backpacker kids going to Bangkok to do ecstasy," Analect says. "Just don't get arrested." Mike is interning in Hong Kong when his editor, a friend of his father's, gives him the assignment, and a mission: find Christopher Dorr, a brilliant journalist gone AWOL. So begins a propulsive journey that will take a young man grasping after his identity headlong through fast nights in Thailand, into the grip of family tragedy, and into the heart of September 11, 2001. Along the way he encounters a kaleidoscope of characters-the Flying Circus, a hard-living band of journalists trying to expose the Thai government's murderous repression of drug dealers; Tweety, an inexplicably alluring prostitute hungry to leave her world of poverty and desperation; and the third brother, a mysterious, imaginary sibling created by Mike's haunted older brother.

Through it all, Mike must come to terms with the legacies of his troubled family and privileged upbringing. "He knew that if you grow up with money, you don't think about being rich and that the same is probably true of courage. But if you grow up with lies, you find out that some lies become true. Mike knew this and so did not lie. Except to himself, about his parents." The Third Brother moves with the speed and purpose of a bullet through the complexities of life in a Third-World capital of illicit hedonism, to the unspeakable horror of 9/11, and to the polished life of academia, offering a devastating portrait of a family caught between love and turmoil, and of a young man stretching to come to terms with his past and to find his future.


About Nick McDonell

Nick McDonell was born in 1984 in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jolene on August 24, 2013

Twelve was well designed and I have to admit that I was reacquainted with McDonell's style and imaginary world. The Third Brother is as crazy as Twelve in the storytelling but the part on 9/11 was well described psychologically and emotionally speaking. For once, you got a glimpse of what it could h......more

Goodreads review by Leif on September 11, 2011

This book confused me. It seems that the author had several plot lines in mind, didn't know how to resolve them, and decided to just mash them together which made for a very (confusing) conclusion.......more

Goodreads review by Susan on December 17, 2019

This is the tale of a guy called Mike, born into a privileged but dysfunctional family. The story starts while he’s working as an intern in Hong Kong. He travels to Thailand to research a story and look up an employee of his boss, who also happens to be an old friend of his parents. Mike discovers B......more

Goodreads review by Miquel on April 13, 2024

Probablemente el mejor libro sobre el 11s que he leído......more

Goodreads review by umliegend_nougat on August 03, 2019

German......more