Washington Post review: Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
Beautiful Children is also about the aftermath of war - not merely Iraq,
although that is mentioned - but more importantly “the war of all against
all,” which seems to have been raging for a couple of generations at least
now. It is, as Bock demonstrates, destroying our kids with the demonic
ingenuity of modern drugs and technology, not to mention the demise of the
family itself, and yet we still refuse to take it tragically. In the no
man’s land of Bock’s Vegas there remain only the baroque survival
strategies of sometimes well-meaning but hopelessly inept and appallingly
young mutants. I cannot think of another novelist who has dared to attack
this most pressing and complex issue so ferociously. Bock is to be
commended for his high achievement.
John Burdett is the author, most recently, of “Bangkok Haunts”.