This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman tackles the controversial subject of teenage sexuality and the unintended consequences of life with the Internet. A true Molotov cocktail, this book is sure to get the conversation started at your local book club.
The book begins with an uncomfortable scene involving thirteen year old Daisy Cavanaugh filming a sexually explicit video for sixteen year old Jake Bergamot. It involves nudity, a bat, and a whole lot of chutzpah that I certainly didn't possess at such a tender age. Daisy hits "send" and Jake pushes "forward", each of them making the same mistake in thinking the video will go no further than the one person they each sent it to. While not a tale as old as time, it's certainly one that's become more common in the face of advancing technology. No more are salacious details contained to some graffiti sprayed walls of a public bathroom. It's immediate and it's everywhere.
This Beautiful Life doesn't make you choose between Jake or Daisy's perceptions in the story. It's a narrative that explores the feelings and decisions that the Bergamot family makes when confronted by the school and Daisy's parents over the video. Jake's parents, Liz and Richard Bergamot, have just moved from idyllic Ithaca to the privileged and affluent Upper West Side of Manhattan. We see Liz struggle to keep up with the demands of motherhood and the expectations that go along with posh parenting. Richard is a typical workaholic, delighting in his ability to provide this newer, more lavish lifestyle. We watch as Jake assimilates into an opulent culture of unbridled freedom, alcohol, drugs, and a private school that has Paris Hilton like connotations.
Readers are left with a sense of deep sadness for both of these kids, who are judged by society and friends. What Shulman portrays so well is the short sightedness that young people all have and their inability to comprehend a world where privacy meant something else, altogether.
