Select Passages for Vocabulary from Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

Having written a short review of Beautiful Boy by David Sheff I was not satisfied that I had captured the scope of this literary masterpiece. It is no wonder David Sheff was named to Time Magazine Time 100, The World's Most Influential People in 2009. I am under his influence. I hope reading this selection of passages I flagged for vocabulary words will influence you.

On page 9 Sheff describes his son: "Nic had been a sensitive, sagacious, exceptionally smart and joyful child, but on meth he became unrecognizable." Sagacious: of keen and farsighted penetration and judgement.

Sheff explains the process of writing his way through his son's addiction (pg. 10): "I am not the first writer for whom this work became a blugeon with which to battle a terrible enemy, as well as an expurgation, a grasping for something (anyhing) fathomable amid calamity, and an agonizing process by which the brain organizes and regulates experience and emotion that overwhelms it." Expurgation: to cleanse of something morally harmful, offensive, or erroneous.

After divorcing Nic's mother the reality of joint custody hits home (pg. 67): "Though it may be the best we can do, I loathe joint custody. It presupposes that children can do just as well when they are divided between two homes, each defined by a different parent and different step-parents and sometimes step-siblings and a jumble of expectations, discipline, and values that often contradict one another. "Home is a holy thing," Emily Dickinson said. But homes is an antilogy. How many adults can imagine having two primary homes?" Antilogy: a contradiction in ideas, statements, or terms.

A family counseling session with a 17 year old on drugs is described on page 93: "The therapist does his best to orchestrate a civil conversation, but Nic is irascible and defensive, minimizing my concerns as stupid and over protective." Irascible: hot tempered and easily provoked anger.

Further research into his son's drug of choice results in this sobering sentence (pg. 108): "Meth appears to be the most malefic drug of them all." Malefic: having malignant influence. Nic's addiction runs a cancerous course through all of the lives he touches.

Driving to rehab after a relapse Nic turns on his father (pg. 125): "Glaring at me, he says, "I'll just run away." He is supercilious and condescending - almost savage. "You fucking think you know me? You don't know anything about me. You have always tried to control me."" Supercilious: disdainful or contemptuous; full of or characterized by pride or scorn; haughty.

David remains in denial of the true state of his son's being even after rehab (pg. 140): "Given my quixotic fantasy, I resent the rehab counselors, whose point of view is clear. For them, rehab is all that matters. Everything else must be put aside." Quixotic: extravagantly chivalrous or foolishly idealistic.

He admits he can't get to a place where it is acceptable to let Nic go (pg. 141): "At some point, parents may become inured to a child's self-destruction, but I do not. I do know the drill though. I call the police and hospital emergency rooms." Inured: to make accustomed to something difficult, painful, etc.; habituate.

Stunning and horrifying realities of addiction are recounted throughout. This one by a girl in a park as David searches for Nic who has relapsed again (pg. 144): "She stabbed a guy once, "just in the leg," and pays for meth by dealing. "When I can't pay, I give a blow job or whatever." She says this and then seems embarrassed, somehow jarred by the memory of an ossified emotion. She turns her head to the side and looks down. In profile, with her unwashed hair hanging down, she looks half her age. "I am a bitch if I can't score," she says. "On meth I'm all right."" Ossify: to change or develop into bone; to settle or fix rigidly in a practice, custom, attitude, etc.

Another relapse, another dose of addiction reality (pg 167): "However, it can and often does take time and mistakes for a person to understand the pernicious power of addiction, and moreover, to understand how easy it is to relapse. I may have heard it but I have not digested the terrible nature of the illness, including its permanence." Pernicious: causing great injury, destruction, or ruin; fatal; deadly.

David struggles to reconcile the addicted man with the beautiful child he once was (pg. 179): "But I remind myself: Nic is not Nic when he is using. Throughout this ordeal I strive to understand this force that has shanghaied my son's brain, and I sometimes wonder if his recidivism is a moral failing or a character flaw. I sometimes also blame the treatment programs. And then I blame myself. I go back and forth. But I always come back to this: If Nic were not ill he would not lie. If Nic were not ill he would not steal. If Nic were not ill he would not terrorize his family." Recidivism: habitual or chronic relapse, or tendency to relapse, esp. into crime or antisocial behavior.

In the midst of life and addiction David suffers a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Even in the altered state of the hemorrhage and its treatment worry over Nic perseveres (pg 242): "I have had a kind of brain scraping, a potentially lethal one, and I cannot recall my name and the year and yet I am not spared the worrying that only parents of a child on drugs - I suppose any parent of a child in moral peril - can comprehend. Is he in mortal peril? His beautiful brain poisoned, possessed, on methamphetamine. I wanted to remove him erase him elide him from my brain, but he is there, even after this hemorrhage. We are connected to our children no matter what. They are interwoven into each cell and inseparable from every neuron. They supersede our consciousness, dwell in our every hollow and cavity and recess with our most primitive instincts, deeper even than our identities, deeper even than our selves." Elide: to suppress or alter by elision, to strike out, to leave out of consideration, omit, curtail, abridge.