Beautiful Children (eBook)

Charles Bock (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2008 | 1. Auflage
432 Seiten
Random House Publishing Group (Verlag)
978-1-58836-683-2 (ISBN)

Infos

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.

Advance praise for Beautiful Children
'Charles Bock has delivered an anxious, angry, honest first novel filled with compassion and clarity. Beautiful Children is fast, violent, sexy and--like a potentially dangerous ride--it could crash at any moment but never does. The language has a rhythm wholly its own--at moments it is stunning, near genius. This book is big and wild--it is as though Bock saved up everything for this moment. A major new talent.'
--A. M. Homes

'Beautiful Children careens from the seedy to the beautiful, the domestic to the epic, all with huge and exacting heart.'
--Jonathan Safran Foer

'Beautiful Children is the best first novel I've read in years--certainly the best first novel of our newborn century. Charles Bock has written a masterpiece: tragic, comic, sexy, chilling, far-reaching, and wise--at once an accusation and a consolation, and a lucid portrait of what is happening at the very heart of our culture, and what it means to be a young American today.'
--Sean Wilsey

From the Hardcover edition.

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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.”—NewsweekOne 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

Textauszug

WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS 4--6:30 P.M. 1.1 The lens zooms in, then draws back. The images are shaky: a celebration, that much is clear, children in bright orange jerseys and matching baseball caps, some worn backward, or with bills to the side. They chatter and jibe, passing pitchers of soda, reaching for slices with favorite toppings. Chins shine with grease. Smiles glow as if smeared with lipstick. One boy sits a bit away from the rest, toward the end of the table. He is pretty much the same size as everyone else--pudgier than some, smaller than others. He's not wearing a cap, though, and the poor resolution of the camcorder makes it look as if the top of his skull might be consumed in flame. But no. Another second shows nothing more dangerous than a mass of bright red hair. The child leans forward now, his jersey bunching around his shoulders. Attempting to convince the nearest teammate to unscrew the top of a salt shaker, his freckled face is animated, lively. Dude, we can hear him say. Come on. Come on, dude. A punch to the shoulder answers him. He squeals, though not unhappily. Dick. The camcorder's microphone catches the tail end of a reprimand from an unseen adult. It catches the boy's protest, It wasn't me! By this time, though, focus is shifting, swinging toward the middle of the table, where coaches and other adults subdue a slap fight. After a few seconds, a semblance of decorum is reached, the presentation of the next trophy begins, and the camera pans down the length of the table, showing children in varying states of interest. And here judicious use of the fast-forward cues a final appearance by the redheaded boy, for just a few seconds, a short sequence--he directs a sneering remark toward the action, when his neighbor does not respond, the boy sinks into his chair. The flesh of his cheeks lengthens, goes slack. Small eyes cloud, turn dark. This sequence, these scant seconds, are why the Ewings tracked down that videotape. Because recent photos were supposed to work best, were supposed to give a potential witness the best chance at identification. So Lincoln and Lorraine would stand at the front door of a nice couple whose names they had memorized on the ride over. Nodding soberly, the Ewings would thank the couple for all their help. They would try to make small talk. The delighted shrieks of children would interrupt, breaking out from upstairs, bodies tramping, at play. Then designer sunglasses would not be able to hide Lorraine's tears. And then Lincoln would take his wife into his arms. Gently he would stroke her hair and gently he would guide her back down the walkway, her face staying buried in his shoulder, her mascara running, just a bit, onto his suit's lapel. No words between them, just his arm delicate around her waist, their long, twisted shadow slipping diagonally through the trim, open yard. And yes, that black cassette, it would be Lincoln's possession: in his opposite hand, as far from Lorraine as possible. In a short amount of time that section of videotape would be transformed into a series of stills, frames scanned into a computer. A single frame would be enlarged, then Photoshopped, resulting in the image of a slouching, unexpressive child. This image would be circulated in e-mail attachments, faxes, and flyers, it would be posted in arcades and student unions and youth hostels, in post offices and convenience stores and drop-in centers for the homeless and indigent. And at some point fairly early on in this process, Lincoln Ewing would be reminded of the damndest piece of information. A drop of conventional wisdom that, honestly, Lincoln had no clue where he'd picked up. It concerned Native...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.1.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-58836-683-9 / 1588366839
• ISBN-13: 978-1-58836-683-2 / 9781588366832