Beautiful Children

I definitely agree with one of the other reviewers that you will either love or hate this book. I loved it. It is very realistic in the way it portrays the thoughts of the characters and the hopelessness and destructiveness that teenagers feel. I was extremely impressed with the thoughts and descriptions of the complete breakdown of Newell's parent's marriage. This is not the type of book I usually like. I don't often enjoy all of the endless wanderings of each characters train of thought and of actions that are not in the present, but in this book they worked and truly enhanced the story.

This is a marvelous book -- vivid, passionate, heartfelt. I took a writing class from Charles some six years ago, and remember him as a man on fire for great fiction. He told us he'd been working on one novel for many years, to the exclusion of everything else. Frankly, I worried for him. I was working then as a book editor at Penguin, and knew that most books, no matter how well-written, are ignored; they never find the kind of audience that would justify ten years of devotion. I was thrilled to read the book and see that his commitment had paid off. And I'm ecstatic to see Charles's book get this great publicity, because the attention ensures that a lot more of the right people will find their way to his book -- and will be thrilled that they did. Who are the right people? Those who want a funny, sad, angry, and above all accurate portrayal of life as it is lived for countless Americans today. Those who want a great story full of vivid characters and illuminating descriptions -- a book that sustains an intriguing mood as it moves between one unique person and the next, and takes you all kinds of places you've never been. It reminds me of Don DeLillo's "White Noise"; both books create an atmosphere that stays with you long after the details slip your mind. "Beautiful Children" takes a little time to gather its full momentum, but so do most great novels. Those who stay with it will reap a rich reward: a novel that will live with them long after they close its covers.

Charles Bock's hypnotic debut novel follows the ricocheting lives of several people in Las Vegas, whose lives intersect and separate in dramatic ways on the night that twelve-year old Newell Ewing disappears forever. But the narrative isn't only focused on that one night, but on the myriad ways that the characters have been led to this point in time and, for some, where they will go from there. You see, on the night of Newell's disappearance these people have been driven to the edge - and Bock wants us to understand how they got there. Bock shows great skill at characterization, I found every one of the characters compelling and thought it was mesmerizing to witness their unraveling as their circumstances and choices brought them to a boiling point. "Beautiful Children" is about some seriously damaged people, some trying desperately to get out of their ruts and some determined to self-destruct. The Las Vegas setting looms large here, because it seems like every opportunity in the world is within reach, but they can't take advantage of it. Bock's characters are down in the dumps in a city where instant fortunes are supposed to be regular occurrences and happiness is there for the taking - at the right price, that is. Fortune is like a mirage in the desert heat, and Bock uses the parallel well (growing up in Vegas certainly helped him understand the city's highs and lows). But there is also a sense of renewal and hope burning through these characters - a palpable desire to be a better person. "It is your sins that make you beautiful. But this does not necessarily give us license to do whatever we wish." And it is this sense of overriding hope, an astonishing achievement in a first novel, that makes "Beautiful Children" such a great novel. But Bock's first outing does have its flaws, too. There is one character that gets a fair amount of page time but never overcomes his peripheral-to-the-plot status, making time spent on him feel irrelevant. As Bock brings us back and forth in time it is occasionally jarring to figure out just when this scene is taking place (he also makes one or two errors in his chronology that don't exactly help matters - for instance, toward the end of one character's storyline he doesn't yet possess the cell phone that he has already used to call his girlfriend in her plotline). And while I appreciate that Bock didn't make Newell the saintly-kid-that-goes-missing cliché that most writers go for in order to garner sympathy, did he have to make the kid such an insufferable jerk? He's so irritating that you actually want bad things to happen to him, and it doesn't really jibe with the all-too-abrupt conclusion. Having said that, I believe "Beautiful Children" marks the arrival of a fierce new literary talent in Charles Bock. Forget what the haters say, the novel's strong points far outweigh its faults, and if this is what Bock can do in his first novel, well, I for one can't wait to see what he has in store

A beautiful, beautiful novel that is hilarious, poignant, and provocative. The fragmented chronology is incredibly effective--each chapter recounts a short stretch of time during the August night when the preteen Newell disappears amidst flashbacks and flashforwards following the ten main characters. Anything that might seem unclear falls into place by the end, and through their stories you become attached to all of the characters, who are usually frustrating or repulsive or stupid, but who are all intimately, lovingly explored. It's incredible how Bock loves each one, refuses to reduce any of them to a caricature. They are all--from the stripper to the cracked-out, pregnant, homeless teen to the 12-year-old brat to the tertiary figures in the pawnshop and the porn rings--memorable and vivid. The one I did miss for a while was Bing, the overweight and geeky comic-book artist with a million-dollar idea, but his metaliterary last scene is perfectly placed, and you have to miss him for a while to be ready for it. Bock's prose is raw, surprising, and always interesting. He experiments with chatroom dialogues, imaginary screenplays, epistles, epic catalogues, and free indirect discourse with enthusiasm but restraint--never too much at a time. There's even one illustration that is funny and ridiculous. Frankly, the negative reader reviews on here are crap. How can you wonder, "is this book showing an '80's punk scene or present day?" when the characters in the story-now time sequence (that fateful August) remember the Columbine school shootings, World Trade Center attacks, and the war in Iraq? Further, the suggestion that Bock neglected his research into missing children is blatantly ludicrous. The book gives an extensive description of an outreach program (like the ones the author sites in the end notes), and the "sort of phone call.. you receive" could be, um, a phone call from someone with your kid when they ran away... like Kenny. Moreover, the strained relationship of Lincoln and Lorraine following Newell's disappearance is one of the most well-developed and intimately nuanced threads of the novel. And, yes, there were non-white characters in the text, and anyway for many of the characters, you don't get any suggestions about race. How can a novel that includes such a diverse character cast be "narrow"? Finally, the accusation that Bock throws in everything, "including the kitchen sink," to me is not an accusation at all... if you're going to write a novel, go ahead and write goddam Moby Dick. Cheers to Bock; he deserves respect and renown for giving the world another good book.

Beautiful Children is simply put a beautiful read. A beautiful, compelling, can't put it down exciting read. It is complex, layered, incisive, and fascinating. Mr. Bock doesn't just write impressively; his nuanced character sketches, layered plot and cultural insight propels you into a world that is at once grimy, fascinating, sad and ultimately hopeful. This book works on so many levels but at it's extremes it a great read as well as being a literary achievement. I highly recommend this book.