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g THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, January 29, 2003 THEY SAID IT CONTACT US BENJAMIN DISRAEL': “Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions Story ideas? Questions? Comments? alone that can create a nation.” E-mail us at gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com idelsohn ifeL «L PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK Author Paul Mendelsohn sits proudly by his first-ever novel, “Where Do Flies Go In Winter?” which chronicles his cross-country experiences with the military. A former Army National Guardsman and ’93 USC graduate makes writing debut with Gulf-War spy novel BY COREY GARRIOTT THE GAMECOCK “So far, I’ve sold eight copies,” said Paul Mendelsohn, whose re sume spans the globe. The former naval officer and Army National Guardsman has traveled through out Europe. After graduating from USC in 1993 as an electrical engineering student, Mendelsohn spent the next seven years of his life writ ing a Gulf-War thriller. Now, 700 pages later, he can add “novelist” to the list. Mendelsohn, a soldier during the ’70s and ’80s, has had years to gather memories for his novel. His book, “Where Do Flies Go in Winter,” incorporates Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Berlin and his study of Middle-Eastern maps dur ing the Gulf Invasion for an inter national plot. The title itself is as enigmatic as the climactic desert locale. “It’s integral to one of the char acter’s lives in the story,” he said. Beginning with an innocent question, the phrase repeats throughout the book to eventually reveal a bond between the two main characters. They’re brothers, adopted iden tical twins. Matthew, the first twin, is separated from his brother Sean by a freak kidnapping early in the novel. Fast-forward three decades, and “Matthew’s just an ordinary guy with a house and a wife in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “But in the intervening 26 years, Sean went through a harrowing life.” Sean’s youth was sold into slav ery. Sexual abuse and murder beat out his humanity, and he now works as a weapons dealer for none other than Saddam Hussein. Matthew, of course, is coerced by the government into switch- It is instead about the mettle of ing roles with his identical broth- an ordinary guy in extraordinary er. circumstances, he said. Rather The idea is to penetrate than piling on the gadgetry, Hussein’s weapons network. He “Where do Flies Go in Winter” cigieea, uui issues the CIA a caveat: He’ll play the role and infiltrate the weapons ring only if the govern ment “It is not a James Bond would-be. I think the modern spy novel has had its time.” PAUL MENDELSOHN AUTHOR OF “WHERE DO FLIES GO IN WINTER?" waicnca wuai nay pens inside Matthew as he los es control of his fate. “The human sto ry,” Mendelsohn said, “is that Matthew wants to reconnect with his long-lost brother; what he doesn’t promises to extradite his broth er and bring him back. It is not a run-of-the-mill, high tech political spy novel. Mendelsohn takes a different ap proach. “It’s not a James Bond would be,” he said. “I think the modem spy novel has had its time.” know is that his brother is now a cold-blooded killer.” The outcome of focusing on psy chology is a gruesome novel, with explicit sex scenes and slow mur ders. Mendelsohn’s knowledge of the military machine flavors the plot, adding a second stress on Matthew. “The book has a military fla vor,” he said. “Matthew is a means to the government’s ends, dangerously in the middle be tween his brother’s murderous ness and the CIA.” When the CIA has an agent that goes wayward, he said, it sends someone to take the agent out. It’s a cruel but realistic sys tem. This, of course, “doesn’t mean a whole lot to Matthew,” he said, who is more concerned with his brother than his mission. “It’s a story for anyone who would be interested in what some body would do in unusual cir cumstances,” he said. It’s almost a psychological thriller. “In the end, Matthew comes out damaged,” he said, as anyone must who is forced to kill. But the promotion is a task as epic as Matthew’s. “It’s a lot of work and a lot of time,” Mendelsohn said. “It’s dif ficult to get a book off the ground — there are thousands of books out there.” “What I’m doing right now is just contacting media, like Barnes and Noble, Books-a Million, and local bookstores, wholesalers, newspapers, and on line book review editors,” he said. Though book sales are tough — a fiction writer must compete on a national level — there’s a bright side. “I’m expecting a royalty check of about $8.48 sometime this spring,” Mendelsohn said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com - TOP 10 These were the most requested songs on USC’s student radio station from Jan. 20-26. 1. “A DEMONSTRATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY” Mellowdrone 2. “BOOMSLANG!” Johnny Marr and the Healers 3. “BACKROADS FOR TOMORROW” Backroads for Tomorrow 4T“BIGGER cages, longer CHAINS” International Noise Conspiracy 5. “COLE” ■Emily Easterly 6. “NINE TIMES” American Chills 7. “LET MY BURDEN BE” Golden Shoulders 8. “RED DEVIL DAWN” Crooked Fingers 9. “LIVING AND FORGETTING” Glasstown 10. “TWELVE IMAGINARY INCHES” Stitches t Pseudo-Italian eatery worth the wait MICHAEL LAFORGIA THE GAMECOCK Carolina Dining’s new tratto ria features restaurant-style seat ing and lighting, Italian renais sance art, as well as many pas tels and neon oranges, purples and greens. Though the waiting area was cramped on opening day (people were lined up along the walls, arms crossed, receipts in hand), the dining area accommodated the large crowd adequately. However, the place got noisy with patrons, cooks and a blar ing loudspeaker that drowned out the Italian music — music that might have been quite loud in any other situation. A restaurant-cafeteria hybrid, Pandinis operates through sep arate food stations, much like the Grand Market Place. Unlike the GMP, however, orders are placed at one centralized loca tion and picked up at another. The menu is modest, if not a little disappointing, and only of fers four kinds of pizza, a strom boli, a calzone, two different types of sandwiches, a salad and one type of pasta. The pasta penne, prepared with roasted sausage, onions, and peppers in marinara sauce, was promptly prepared, gener ously portioned, and served with breadsticks. The sauce was too sweet and included large slices of onions and green peppers, which made it more akin to a ragout than a marinara. The sausage was very thinly sliced but acceptably seasoned. The pizzas were good, reason ably sized for one person and al most worth the 35-minute wait. It was, after all, opening night. The calzones, on the other hand, were too small and took just as long to prepare. As for ambience, one won’t find any troubadours singing for tips, but listening to the strained frantic shouts of the cooks (one yelled out something like, “I need those pizzas in the oven, like, yesterday”) makes for de cent entertainment, provided you’ve already got your food. Pandinis serves lunch and din ner Mondays through Thursdays from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fridays from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 12 noon to 10 p.m. It is closed Saturdays. Entrees are priced from $3.79 to $4.99. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockm ixeditor@hotmail. com Students endure long lines just to taste the new cuisine and enjoy the stylish ambience at Pandlnis. PHOTO BY JULIA ■ knetzer/theB gamecockH BOOK REVIEW ‘Oyster9full of life, but lacks surprises “OYSTER” Janette Turner Hospital ★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ BY GRAHAM CULBERTSON THE GAMECOCK Janette Turner Hospital’s apocalyptic novel, “Oyster,” is a formidable work. The isolated Australian town Outer Maroo is enamoured in great catastrophe, at the center of which is the mys terious cult leader Oyster. Oyster’s actions and character are only slowly revealed as the novel progresses — but jerkily, with a nonlinear structure. Phrases, sentences, passages and even entire chapters make sense and exhibit a fantastic craftsmanship; Hospital leaves no doubt that she can write Veil. Her words often seem to have a frightening, illuminating life of their very own. But these brief glimpses of genius overcome neither the confused and con fusing structure of the book, nor the conventional postmod ernism of her characterization. Told in flashbacks and flash forwards, Hospital’s novel leaps from narrator to narrator, from its more-or-less protagonist Mercy Givens, to an assortment of other characters around Outer Maroo. As we follow Mercy in her search for truth and slowly learn more about the novel’s central truths as well as about Oyster and the tragedy that accompanied him, the nov el makes certain things relent lessly clear. Early in the book, Mercy, in an attempt to make sense of the events going on around her, tells us, “Things happened, but it was difficult to fix them in a se quence.” Mercy’s hardship stems out of Hospital’s unwill ingness to tell the story straight. The reader feels as trapped as the little girl, unable to make sense of the story or truly relate to the shifting realities which are Hospital’s characters. Like the works of Faulkner and Eco before it, among oth ers, “Oyster” is essentially a ♦ ‘OYSTER’, SEE PAGE 9