Twelve

Book excerpt: New York Times Notable Book: “An exceptional, assured debut [that] captures the zeitgeist of confused adolescents and a sick culture post-Columbine.”—Hartford Courant A national bestseller that inspired a major motion picture, this chilling novel follows prep school dropout White Mike through the week between Christmas and New Year’s 1999, as he deals an alluring new drug to his privileged peers on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The kids of Twelve have it all; Chris and Claude and Hunter and Laura have the best, and most, of everything, but are constantly looking for something more exotic, and more dangerous. But Twelve is not a coming-of-age story, because these kids never had a childhood—their parents are off on holiday in Bali or business in Brussels, leaving hired help to look the other way as the kids stay home alone in their multimillion-dollar town houses, partying, surrounded by drugs and sex—and, in the end, much worse. “Renders Manhattan’s cosseted Upper East Side with both the casual authority of an insider and the wry distance of an observer…impressive.”—Jennifer Egan, The New York Times Book Review “Riveting in its no-holds-barred depiction of teenage nihilism.”—Jon Land, Providence Journal