Helen Schulman saw the sexting era coming, said Jill Bialosky in TheDailyBeast.com. In 2003, the New York author was searching for book ideas when she noticed a trend. There had been several incidents in New York City involving “kids and their indiscretions,” she says, and she was struck by the “needlessly vicious” response of other teenagers. A mother herself, Schulman shuddered each time she heard about teenagers sending pictures or videos of themselves naked or performing sexual acts. “I found, by proxy, the aftereffects of these actions haunting and painful.” She contacted public school officials to try to write a nonfiction work about the subject, but met with resistance. “So I thought I would make it up,” she says.
This Beautiful Life, which is Schulman’s fifth novel, tells the story of a privileged New York family that’s torn apart when a teenage son stumbles into a sexting scandal, said Alexandra Alter in The Wall Street Journal. Creating a fictional drama turned out to be liberating. “Story truth feels realer than nonfiction,” says the author. “A story can often do a better job at getting me closer to understanding than a piece of reportage.” Schulman took pains not to pass moral judgments on her characters. “The desire to share something that upsets one or scares or titillates is human,” she says. Writing the book has definitely made her more cautious, though. “I spent so much time with this. Every once in a while I send an e-mail and I think, ‘Should I have put that in?’”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Republicans want to silence Israel's opponents'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Poland, Germany nab alleged anti-Ukraine spiesSpeed Read A man was arrested over a supposed Russian plot to kill Ukrainian President Zelenskyy
-
Today's political cartoons - April 19, 2024Cartoons Friday's cartoons - priority delivery, USPS on fire, and more
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”