"This Beautiful Life," by Helen Schulman

Helen Schulman’s “This Beautiful Life” (Harper, 2011) is a novel about family, a longstanding theme in novels, but in this case one with a very contemporary twist: It illustrates the unpredictability and the power of the Internet, the power to change people’s lives. Jake, the 15-year-old son of Richard and Liz Bergamot, is a nice young man who gets caught up with a privileged, partying private school crowd in New York City. A younger girl, Daisy, who wants Jake’s attention, sends him a sexually explicit video of herself, which in his shock and confusion, he forwards to a friend. Of course that friend forwards it on as well, and within hours, the video has gone viral and been seen by millions all over the world. The consequences for Jake – suspension from school, shame, and a blot on his future – and for the whole family – lawyers, shame, defensiveness, anger on their son’s behalf, fear, the father’s job and reputation impacted, and more – shake the foundations of the Bergamots’ marriage and of the lives of the family, including that of little Coco, Jake’s much younger sister. As many of the adults in this story reflect, Daisy’s and then Jake’s adolescent missteps could not have occurred in the same way, and are multiplied to a whole different level and quality, than they would have been before the current ubiquity of the Internet; it is frightening to see how one young person’s decision (to make and send the video) and another’s (to forward it) can change all their lives instantaneously and forever. Although there are some clichéd presentations of New York and of its most privileged young people, the main characters in this novel are well drawn and believable. This is truly a cautionary tale for the 21st century, one that will send a chill through parents who read it.