Democracy in Thin Air
New York Times [27th November 2005]
LAST week, Nepal’s Maoist rebels and a coalition of seven opposition parties agreed on a program to try to end direct rule by King Gyanendra.
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Archive for November, 2005
Washington Post review: The Third Brother by Nick McDonell
Tripping
A young reporter stumbles into Bangkok drug-trafficking.
Reviewed by John Burdett
Sunday, November 6, 2005
In 2002, at the astonishing age of 17, Nick McDonell wrote a fine novel about Manhattan called Twelve, which became an international bestseller and was highly praised for its mastery of teen-talk (comparisons with Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye were made). I’m prepared to bet that once the euphoria faded, McDonell became the victim of a form of panic that follows every such triumph: Can I do it again, or was it just a fluke? Shrewdly, he realized that his gift was all about the imaginative recreation of contemporary urban experience, but he didn’t want to repeat himself; in other words, he needed another New York. Continue Reading »