Unfortunately, this state of affairs has a poor impact on the structure of
the book in that there is often no apparent connection between the various
subplots. Beautiful Children is not an easy read, nor is it a polished
work. Bock’s moments of simple honesty are far more impressive than his
poetic flights of fancy, which can seem gaudy and pretentious, and one
wishes his editor had persuaded him to cut a third. The two-speed time
structure, ingenious though it is, can be an irritating impediment to
understanding who is doing what and when. Put simply, the book needs to be
read at least twice before one can grasp its full scope - a quixotic
requirement, coming from an author who is painfully aware of the limits of
the modern attention span.

And yet this novel does deserve to be read more than once because of the
extraordinary importance of its subject matter and the sensitivity with
which he treats it. As I considered Bock’s work, Lawrence’s opening to Lady
Chatterley’s Lover, “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take
it tragically,” rattled constantly through my brain.

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