The good people at Grove/Atlantic would like you to keep in mind that “Twelve” author Nick McDonell is only 18 years old, in much the same way that Robin Williams’ publicity reps would like you to think of him as “Good Will Hunting” Robin before you see his next film, rather than as the hyperactive man-beast from “Death to Smootchy.”
Like it or lump it, McDonnell’s reputation (age, familial affiliations and socio-economic status) precedes him before you read page one of his debut novel.
To recap, his father is the managing editor of Sports Illustrated, his mother is a prominent novelist and his close family friends include Morgan Entrekin (publisher of Grove/Atlantic) and Hunter S. Thompson (who, in an obviously prompted piece of hyperbolized praise on the book’s back cover, says he “is afraid [McDonnell] will do for his generation what I did for mine ?”).
“Twelve” has garnered comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero” for its brutally honest portrayal of affluent, white Manhattanites who indulge in drugs and casual sex.
Ellis was at least into his 20s when he wrote “Zero” and had the benefits of hindsight and worldly experience, whereas McDonnell, who was 17 when he wrote “Twelve,” had neither. Rather than use this to his advantage by probing deep into the teenage psyche, he opted for facile pop-cultural quips that reduce his players to glorified stock characters.
The story starts out promisingly enough, with the introduction of the protagonist, White Mike. White Mike has recently graduated high school and is taking a year off before college to peddle drugs to teenagers with nothing better to do than lounge around their multimillion-dollar townhouses and experiment.
Although White Mike is a dealer, he doesn’t indulge in any form of alcohol or drug. This gives him a clairvoyance not possessed by his compatriots, and “Twelve” is at its best when following his sober, stream-of-consciousness observations on the streets of New York: “How many is a million,” thinks White Mike. “What are there millions of? People. Pigeons. Pennies.”
It also allows him to see the cross section of humanity offered by the city, as everyone needs his services. “Twelve” follows the subplots of about a dozen different characters, who are all on Christmas break and gearing up for the end-all, be-all of house parties on New Year’s Eve.
As the weed and “twelve” (a fictional, synthetic blend of cocaine and ecstasy that provides the book’s title) are passed around the party, the action builds to a bloody climax, one that was unfortunately announced from the very first pages.
“Twelve” plays out like a poorly conceived ensemble play or a discarded Paul Thomas Anderson script re-interpreted by hipster MTV documentarians.
The story is populated with far too many supporting players, most of whom have the same interchangeable apathy for those not versed in the ways of Prada and Jean-Paul Gaulthier. McDonnell makes it especially hard to sympathize with anyone besides White Mike, as he paints a fatalistic picture from the get-go and has his characters make poor choice after poor choice.
McDonnell’s prose certainly doesn’t ameliorate the situation. His sentence structure tends toward a simplistic subject-verb-object format, with no apparent purpose, plodding aimlessly forward.
Just when you get used to his style, it’s spiked with glaringly highfalutin word choices that reek of editor-intervention. Although McDonnell claims that, like White Mike, he has never done drugs, his erratic prose comes off like the notebook musings of a first-time pot smoker.
There’s something to be said for a kid who can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes publishing a comprehensive work of fiction. But don’t hop on the hype train just yet–if McDonnell is to become the literary voice of a new generation (like Thompson was to his), it will have to be without the stigmas of family and sobriety attached.
