Family Values
In an elegiac essay for The Guardian Review recently, Christopher Hitchens sought to draw a line under the idea of journalists as fiction, arguing that all that remains is a bygone age now rendered entirely obsolete by the rise of the internet and a more domesticated press pack. The likelihood of the blogger as a central character remains too risible to countenance at present, though Hitchens does predict its advent, but the decadent Asia of Thai fleshpots and drug-fuelled backpackers as the setting for the newshound novel lends a plausible vigour as a modern setting. While McDonell is no Evelyn Waugh in these matters, he does make a compelling case for inclusion among the more accomplished recent examples of journo fiction.
Andrew Stevens reviews Nick McDonell‘s The Third Brother.