''Beautiful Children: A Novel'' is the first novel by author

Charles Bock Charles Bock (born 1969) is an American writer whose debut 2008 novel '' Beautiful Children'' (published by Random House) was selected by ''The New York Times'' as a Notable Book of the Year for 2008, and won the 2009 Sue Kaufman Prize for Firs ...

. The novel was awarded the

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year. It was established in 1979 in memory ...

in 2009 and was selected as a 100 Notable Books of 2008 by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

Plot

''Beautiful Children'' is about the interwoven lives of several characters in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. The story focuses on the issue of homeless teenage runaways. Young Newell has

ADD Addition (usually signified by the plus symbol ) is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic, the other three being subtraction, multiplication and division. The addition of two whole numbers results in the total amount or '' sum'' of ...

and his overbearing mother Lorraine is not too keen on him hanging out with his older friend Kenny. The Girl With the Shaved Head is looking to fit in with some questionable characters that she just met on the Las Vegas strip. Ponyboy has not always been the best boyfriend and lover to his stripper girlfriend Cheri. Comic book writer Bing Beiderbixxe is just in Vegas for the weekend. These characters' lives intersect in this unflinching tale about lost innocence.Sunday Book Review: Leaving Las Vegas, ''The New York Times'', December 07, 2008
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Characters

Newell Ewing - A 12-year-old boy who has been diagnosed with

. He lives in Las Vegas with his parents.
Lorraine Ewing - Newell's overbearing mother. She used to be a Vegas showgirl until she got a

C-section Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or ...

scar from giving birth to Newell.
Lincoln Ewing - Newell's father. He had a chance at a promising career as a Major League

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player until he suffered from an injury and then took a job in Las Vegas.
Kenny - Newell's friend who is older and has a car. Kenny is socially awkward. Kenny likes comic books.
The Girl with the Shaved Head - A young girl who is a loner. She is looking to make friends.
Lestat - A homeless teenage runaway. He tricks Newell and steals his cell phone.
Danger-Prone Daphney - A homeless anarchist

Wicca Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was ...

n. She takes the girl with the shaved head under her wing.
Ponyboy - A rough gutter punk who runs packages around Las Vegas on his

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the earl ...

bike. He lives at his girlfriend Cheri's house.
Jabba - Ponyboy's ruthless boss.
Cheri Blossoms - A Las Vegas stripper. She is very kind. She is Pony Boy's girlfriend.
Bing Beiderbixxe - A comic book creator who is socially awkward. He meets Cheri at a

strip club A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other Erotic dancing, erotic or exotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or Bar (establishment), bar style, and can also ...

Resources for runaways

In the last pages of the 2008 hardcover edition there is a list of addresses, phone numbers and web sites that are listed as Resources. The author writes: "If you are out on the streets, or a parent of a missing teen, here are a few places to get help." These resources are for teenage

runaways Runaway, Runaways or Run Away may refer to: Engineering * Runaway reaction, a chemical reaction releasing more heat than what can be removed and becoming uncontrollable * Thermal runaway, self-increase of the reaction rate of an exothermic proce ...

and their families.

References

External links

Random House Edition: 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beautiful Children 2008 American novels Novels set in the Las Vegas Valley