An Expensive Education

For several days, my son wandered around the house repeating "An Expensive Education" outloud. The title to Nick McDonell's book had led to a discussion of the cost of college and I'd touched a little on the double meaning in the title, but I wasn't fooling myself too much. What had intrigued my son about the cover was the silhouette of the machine gun that serves as the letter i in Expensive.

Nick McDonell made a little literary scene with his debut novel Twelve because he was only seventeen years old at the time. I liked the book except for the epilogue which felt tacked on by a seventeen year old unsure of his readers. That's the editor's fault who, presumably, was not seventeen years old. Well, McDonell has grown up a lot and An Expensive Education is a long way from the NYC prep school world of Twelve. We're taken from the expensive education of various characters at Harvard to their various world experiences that turn out to be expensive to their souls, lives, or psyches. There are a lot of characters, though I read this in a very disjointed manner, so I can't attest to whether it was my fault or the author's fault for cramming so much in. The plot does revolve around various conspiracies--The CIA, the Saudis, the academics--so I think we're supposed to be a little confused.

I love how fresh the campus experience feels in this book--it helps that the author is barely out of that environment. I'm even willing to buy some of his Africa undercover experience, though I never got a real sense of the land or area, as if the author didn't know that much either. When a village is blown up in what seems unrelated to a CIA visit to the freedom fighter stopping there--but nonetheless perpetrated by Americans--one of the best moments, is our main man finding a mug from his Alma Mater. Way out there in the bush, the middle of nowhere, in a camp of rebels, there's a mug from Harvard. Of course we know that an explanation and a tie-in will surface eventually (and McDonell takes his clever time), but I liked the thought that Harvard's influence in everywhere....

I had two thoughts as I read: I'm glad I didn't go to Harvard, even if it would have given me connections that set me up for life (um, especially, apparently, if you want to work for the CIA), and I'm so glad my kids aren't college age yet. The stress, both socially and academically, seemed much worse than being tracked by an assassin in remote parts of Africa. I did love one minor character's observation on being a poor international student on campus. Their visas allow them to work only for the college so they mostly clean rooms as part of the dorm crew. The introductory meeting looked like an abbreviated European Union of reluctant janitors. A Scottish piano virtuoso, two Irishmen, half a dozen girls from Eastern Europe who were either short and stout like potato balls or tall and thin like dune grass on the Baltic. There was a Norwegian and an Israeli, both of whom had fulfilled their required military service before coming to Harvard and liked to talk about it.

The large cast of characters, the ambiguity of the good and the bad, and the roles that various members play in the fight against terrorism (perceived and otherwise, personal and world-wide) can make for a confusing read, but it's also a perfect example of the real world chaos inherent in such a fight. You may think you know everything because you come from the World's Greatest University (as dubbed by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam), or you teach there, or you wish you'd been there, but you are just another pawn in someone else's game. Just like everybody else. McDonell has grown a lot in his endings since Twelve, and there are several story lines that don't tie up neatly or even nicely and a final page that you might hope is ambiguous, but is pretty clear. Yeah, that machine gun cover sort of sets that up, doesn't it?