This Beautiful Life

April 11, 2011
In this sobering tale of how adolescent stupidity can have criminal and social repercussions, Schulman (A Day at the Beach) explores what happens when a privileged teen boy forwards to friends a sexually explicit video made for him by a classmate. Jake Bergamot, 15, has recently moved to New York City from Ithaca, N.Y., with his parents, Richard and Liz, and his kindergarten-aged sister, Coco. Life in Ithaca was easy and idyllic, but after Richard takes a job in the city, that all changes. Jake is enrolled at Wildwood, a New York City prep school where he makes a new circle of friends and attends wild parties, one of which leads to the videoâlater made by a girl at the party who Jake refuses to sleep with because, among other reasons, she's too youngâthat could determine the direction his young life will take. Jake is a good student and a nice kid, and his parents are rocked to their foundations by their son being snared in a child pornography scandal. The plot is ripe for salacious tabloid treatment, but Schulman sidesteps easy shock and hyperbole to turn out a provocative story of ethics and responsibilities in the ever-shifting digital age.

Starred review from April 1, 2011

Fifteen-year-old Jake Bergamot stared at his computer screen in disbelief. With one keystroke he had forwarded a very private video to a trusted friend and thus out into the cyberworld, unleashing a firestorm that will bring his family's carefully constructed house of cards tumbling down. Nine months into a move from the idyllic Cornell campus in Ithaca, NY, to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Richard Bergamot is too wrapped up in a challenging new career to notice that his wife, Lizzie, her Ph.D. languishing in a drawer, is suffering adjustment issues. Lizzie, whose day revolves around the uberscheduled social life of her precocious six-year-old fails to sense that Jake is struggling, too. When the crisis strikes, readers will feel torn between averting their eyes and watching in dismay as simmering resentments surface and this once beautiful life implodes. VERDICT Schulman, whose awards include a Pushcart Prize and a Sundance Fellowship, has written a painfully honest novel that examines with precision the delicate balancing act needed to nurture a family through these manic times. Reminiscent of Anita Shreve's Testimony and Anna Quindlen's Every Last One, this book will appeal to readers who thrive on discussing moral ambiguities. [See Prepub Alert, 1/31/11.]--Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011

All's well with the Bergamot family, new to New York's Upper West Side--until son Jake receives a sexually explicit video from an eighth-grade admirer that in a moment of cockiness and confusion he sends to a friend. Soon it's viral, Jake is suspended from his private school, and the whole family starts tearing at the seams. Schulman's quietly thoughtful A Day at the Beach was one of those rare novels about 9/11 that didn't exploit the event, and I expect the same here. The first pages are sobering, elegant, and fluid.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011
With one mouse-click, 15-year-old Jake, beloved son of stay-at-home mom Liz and successful self-made man Richard, changes the lives of the happy Bergamot family forever. He forwards a pornographic video created by and featuring Daisy, an eighth-grade girl he rejected at a party, to a friend. The video goes viral, and the repercussions send shockwaves through the family, the cushy NYC private school Jake attends, and the community, all but canceling out the future Liz and Richard envision for not only Jake but also themselves. Set in 2003, the post-9/11, pre-financial-collapse time frame feels oddly like a period of innocence regained, just before the world of upper-middle-class wealth implodes, positioning the Bergamots as a symptom of the oncoming crisis. Schulman subtly explores family and gender dynamics by telling the story through the eyes of Liz, then Jake, then Richard, and eventually, Daisy. She shifts the perspectives expertly while pulling off a striking parable about moral decay, denial, and self-destruction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

Starred review from November 28, 2011
An upper-class family is rocked by scandal when teenage son Jake receives an e-mail containing an amateur pornographic video from a female admirer. Not knowing how to react, he forwards the e-mail to a friend. When the video goes viral and becomes a prominent news story, Jake is suspended from school and the family becomes the focus of local gossip. Hillary Huber narrates with tremendous empathy for all the characters, conveying their emotions and point of view, and making listeners sympathize with the entire cast. Huber does not create voices per se, instead she simply changes the inflection of her voice to bring out the personality of each character: Jake has a slangy, insecure, whiny sound to his voice; mom Liz’s voice is warm and maternal, but also introspective and conflicted; father Richard is always strong and commanding—even when he feels inside that his world is falling apart. All the complexities and insecurities of the characters are present in Huber’s nuanced performance, making this a compelling and thought-provoking audio. A Harper hardcover.