Twelve

Twelve is a 2002 young adult novel by American journalist, producer, and screenwriter Nick McDonell. Set in an affluent part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, it profiles a hedonistic group of teenagers who develop attachments to a new designer drug said to feel like a mixture of ecstasy and cocaine. The drug, called “Twelve,” is pushed by a rich seventeen-year-old kid known to his peers as White Mike. The novel covers a period of five days leading up to New Year’s Eve in December 1999. McDonell wrote the novel when he himself was seventeen; its commercial success was due, in part, to extensive news coverage describing the work as precocious, contemporary, and cautionary.

Though Twelve centers on White Mike, the narrative moves between many other people in his Manhattan network. When the novel opens, Mike is thinking about his dead mother and philosophizing about his feelings of alienation from New York City. He goes to the local recreation center and finds his friend Hunter, who is covered in blood after instigating a fight with a young black man, Nana. Hunter goes home, talks briefly with his alcoholic father, then leaves. Meanwhile, Nana returns to his home in Harlem. He catches sight of a drug deal in progress; the deal goes south, and Nana is fatally shot. The plot shifts to a house party thrown by an affluent boy, Chris, planned mainly as a way to lose his virginity. Someone convinces a girl named Jessica to do Twelve, and she passes out. A short vignette shows Chris’s brother Claude buying an array of Chinese weapons for fun.

Nana’s body is found, along with the body of a white boy who was shot in the drug deal. The detectives arrest Hunter because he has blood on his clothes. When Jessica wakes up, she goes skating, causes an accident, and badly injures Andrew. He goes to the hospital, and Jessica looks for a way to get more Twelve from White Mike. While recovering from surgery, Andrew is placed in a bed next to high school jock Sean, now recovering from a car crash. Sean is dating another classmate, Sara, who happens to be Andrew’s crush. Sara convinces Chris to have another party on New Year’s Eve. White Mike meets another drug dealer, Lionel. Through Lionel’s perspective, the narrator reveals that Lionel killed White Mike’s missing cousin, Charlie, as well as Nana.



Matching the blood on Hunter’s clothes to Nana, the New York detectives identify him as their main murder suspect. Claude buys an Uzi, increasing his weapons stockpile. Sara finds Chris and asks for payment for the Twelve she acquired for Jessica. White Mike’s friend Molly, oblivious to his role as a dealer, informs him of Chris’ party. White Mike tries to tell her not to go without giving away his role. The next morning, Sara invites Andrew to Chris’s party and asks if he can bring marijuana. Though Andrew doesn’t smoke, he feels pressured to impress, and secures some from White Mike. Jessica wakes up in a semi-psychotic state and uses her stuffed animals as puppets to mock a talk show on television. She goes to lunch with her mother, who asks her to see a psychiatrist. Jessica agrees, but she has no idea what to say without mentioning her use of Twelve.

Hunter, now in jail, calls his father to ask for help. Hunter’s father, remembering a fatal incident from long ago when he was a teenager, tries to give his son emotional support. On New Year’s Eve, the final day in the novel, Andrew, Chris, and others prepare independently for the party. White Mike gets a call from his father notifying him that Charlie is dead. He sobs, struggling to understand how anyone could do such a thing. Jessica acquires more Twelve to bring to the party. Once it starts, Jessica calls White Mike for marijuana, but Lionel comes instead. Andrew and Molly see Lionel approaching and leave to get food. When she doesn’t have enough money, she offers to pay with sex. White Mike arrives and brings the party to a halt by destroying the stereo. When Chris tries to make him leave, he strikes him. White Mike finds Jessica and Lionel in the middle of sex. Lionel pulls out his revolver, which he stole off Charlie’s body. White Mike realizes that Lionel killed his cousin and tries to kill him, but is shot instead.

Adding to the chaos, Claude has a violent breakdown and comes out of his room with his Uzi and a Chinese sword. He kills many people at the party, including Andrew and Molly. When the police arrive outside, Claude fires at them and is killed. In the novel’s brief afterword, narrated by White Mike, he relates that he survived being shot and had surgery. He explains that Hunter was exonerated after forensic analysis on Lionel’s bullets proved that he was responsible for the murders. White Mike now goes to school in Paris and has a better life than he did in New York. A chaotic, almost dystopian novel, Twelve illuminates the dark side of the lives of elite youth at the turn of the twenty-first century.