Beautiful Children # 1

This quarter I chose to read Charles Bock's novel, Beautiful Children. This book takes place in Las Vegas where Newell Ewing's distraught parents try to unravel the mystery of their son's sudden disappearance. The stories of multiple "misfit" characters categorized as: "a 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; and a scheming gutter punk" are brought up in the story, all linking to the Ewing's missing son.

As I begin to read the novel many different characters are introduced along with their interesting stories. The main character, Newell Ewing is a troublesome twelve year old boy with a huge interest in comic books. Readers can see through Newell's relationship with his parents that he is ill tempered and very immature. The day Newell goes missing he makes plans with his friend Kenny who is an artistic comic book illustrator. Kenny then meets an older man, Bing Biederboxx. Bing is a self conscious 24 year old man who is also involved with comic books; having his own nude comic book series.

Although I am only 50 pages into the story I can tell the rest of the story will be filled with darkness and unfortunate instances. So far I get an uncomfortable vibe from the story and the characters make me feel very uneasy. For instance, Lorraine and Lincoln Ewing. This couple start the story off with what seems to be an awkward silence. Bock writes, "He watched when the house was dark and Lorraine was safely locked away inside what Lincoln still thought of as their bedroom" (12). Out of all the misfit character's in this novel I would expect Newell's parents to be the most "normal" but they actually make me feel most uneasy. Their quiet, shaky, non-sexual, relationship seems to be very off balance and it leads me to think they were not able to raise Newell correctly. The couple show no signs of affection to each other...Lorraine doesn't even look at Lincoln as her husband! The lack of nuture the couple show lead me to think Newell received the same treatment. The possibility of Newell running away because of his parents seems very likely to me right now. As Lorraine picks Newell up Bock writes, "her tanned flesh has all but spilled out of her baby-blue swinsuit top, and her wrap-around sarong had been clnging to her in something sttraight out of sophomoric dream" (24). This line shows how Newell's mom acts more like a teenage model than a mother. The fact she wheres very inapropriate clothes leads readers to believe she is in desperate need of attention. My guess is that Lorraine is used to getting attention more than giving it to her son.