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Beautiful Children

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The New York Times bestseller by the author of the forthcoming novel Alice & Oliver | Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters | A New York Times Notable Book
 
“One word: bravo.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Truly powerful . . . Beautiful Children dazzles its readers on almost every page. . . . [Charles Bock] knows how to tug at your heart, and he knows how to make you laugh out loud, often on the same page, sometimes in the same sentence.”—Newsweek

One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn’t come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son’s room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy’s father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving touch, any kind of intimacy.
As the Ewings navigate the mystery of what’s become of their son, the circumstances surrounding Newell’s vanishing and other events on that same night reverberate through the lives of seemingly disconnected strangers: a comic book illustrator in town for a weekend of debauchery; a painfully shy and possibly disturbed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie scenes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a dangerous and scheming gutter punk; a band of misfit runaways. The people of Beautiful Children are “urban nomads,” each with a past to hide and a pain to nurture, every one of them searching for salvation and barreling toward destruction, weaving their way through a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the spinning wheels of chance.
In this masterly debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor to capture Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance and to provide a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption heralding the arrival of a major new writer.
Praise for Beautiful Children
 
“Exceptional . . . This novel deserves to be read more than once because of the extraordinary importance of its subject matter.”The Washington Post Book World
 
“Magnificent . . . a hugely ambitious novel that succeeds . . . Beautiful Children manages to feel completely of its moment while remaining unaffected by literary trends. . . . Charles Bock is the real thing.”The New Republic
 
“A wildly satisfying and disturbing literary journey, led by an author of blazing talent.”The Dallas Morning News
 
“Wholly original—dirty, fast, and hypnotic. The sentences flicker and skip and whirl.”Esquire
 
“An anxious, angry, honest first novel filled with compassion and clarity . . . The language has a rhythm wholly its own—at moments it is stunning, near genius.”—A. M. Homes
 
“From start to finish, Bock never stops tantalizing the reader.”San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Rich and compelling . . . captures the hallucinogenic setting like a fever dream.”Los Angeles Times
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This stunning story of a child's disappearance--and its effect on his loving yet flawed parents--is a remarkable tale of intrigue eerily played out under the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip. Narrator Mark Deakins offers a simple yet layered performance that will surely engage listeners. Deakins portrays a variety of characters--including a troubled young artist and an upbeat teenage witch--each with the same high level of success. His solid pace and unwavering voice create a captivating story. Overall, Deakins's firm delivery makes listening a heart-pounding pleasure. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 27, 2007
      A wide-ranging portrait of an almost mythically depraved Las Vegas, this sweeping debut takes in everything from the bland misery of suburban Nevada to the exploitative Vegas sex industry. At the nexus of this Dickensian universe is Newell Ewing, a hyperactive 12-year-old boy with a comic-book obsession. One Saturday night, Newell disappears after going out with his socially awkward, considerably older friend. Orbiting around that central mystery are a web of sufferers: Newell's distraught parents, clinging onto a fraught but tender marriage; a growth-stunted comic book illustrator; a stripper who sacrifices bodily integrity for success; and a gang of street kids. Into their varying Vegas tableaux, Bock stuffs an overwhelming amount of evocative detail and brutally revealing dialogue (sometimes in the form of online chats). The story occasionally gets lost in amateur skin flicks, unmentionable body alterations and tattoos, and the greasy cruelty of adolescents, all of which are given unflinching and often deft closeups. The bleak, orgiastic final sequence, drawing together the disparate plot threads, feels contrived, but Bock's Vegas has hope, compassion and humor, and his set pieces are sharp and accomplished.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 2008
      Bock's debut novel is among the most acclaimed of 2008, which makes it surprising that its audio version would appear in a truncated, abridged version. Even in the shortened version, Mark Deakins's reading is mostly solid. Deakins's subdued baritone is deeply soothing, which makes the book perhaps more relaxing than Bock might have intended his jarring portrait of Las Vegas's shattered youth to be. The only real miscalculation in Deakins's reading is when he attempts the voices of Bock's hip-hop–wannabe teenagers. The effect is more ludicrous than accurate and makes for a harsh interruption to his otherwise fluid reading. On second thought, perhaps that does fulfill the book's intent to occasionally shock. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 27, 2007).

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  • English

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