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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beautiful Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Addiction, Ruin, and Redemption
Responsibility and Blame
Parenthood and Control
Support vs. Enabling
The Disease Model, Stigma, and Treatment
Summary
Analysis
It is the morning Nic is set to leave for Los Angeles. He says meaningful goodbyes to Jasper and Karen, and says “everything” to David at the airport. David acknowledges how much he hates joint custody: children are divided between two homes with different sets of expectations and values that can contradict one another.
As Nic leaves for Los Angeles, David experiences some of the pain inherent in parenting: of letting go. He has to do so with Nic much earlier than most parents, due to his and Vicki’s divorce, and this is one of the reasons that David wants to keep a firmer grasp on Nic than he might have otherwise.
Themes
The week after Nic leaves, David interviews child psychologist Judith Wallerstein, who investigated the effects of divorce on children. In a series of books, she interviewed children whose parents divorced in the early 1970s, and she followed up with them for the next 25 years. Her findings showed that more than one third of these children experienced moderate to severe depression, and a significant number were “troubled and underachieving.” She explains to David that going back and forth gave them a sense of impermanence. Children found it difficult to find stable friendships with other children, and teenagers complained about having to spend summers with parents instead of friends. She writes that it’s difficult for children to keep up these “parallel lives.”
The statistics that David learns from this interview bolster his belief that much of Nic’s problems have been caused by his and Vicki’s divorce and the “parallel lives” that Nic must juggle as a result. David is constantly looking for something to blame for Nic’s increased drug use, and he views Wallerstein’s findings as an explanation for this. Yet his mistake is that he is looking for something to blame in the past, rather than trying to help Nic take responsibility for what is happening to him in the present.
Themes
When summer is over, Nic returns to Inverness. The day before Nic’s freshman orientation, the family spends one more day at the beach. Nic and David surf together. Nic and Jasper build a sandcastle together, and Jasper asks Nic what LA is like. Nic says that he stays in a town on the edge of LA that is not unlike Inverness—but he missed Jasper. Jasper asks if Vicki can come and live in their house in Inverness so that they can all stay together.
Jasper’s interaction with Nic here foreshadows the way in which Nic’s problems quickly become family problems. Here, Nic’s difficulty dealing with the divorce and going back and forth from LA is also difficult for Jasper. But later, the same thing occurs with Nic’s addiction, as his disease puts a great deal of pressure and sorrow on the rest of his family.
Themes
On the way home from the beach, Nic complains about the back and forth between his parents. Nic would never choose between David and Vicki, but his current situation is also not ideal. David concludes that the divorce has made Nic more responsible and sensitive than he might have been otherwise, but the toll has been great as well. David thinks in hindsight that Nic should not have been forced to do the traveling: David and Vicki should have.
David once again emphasizes how he blames himself for the divorce and the subsequent difficulties that the situation placed on Nic. Yet it is important to recognize that David was doing what he thought was best given the circumstances. There is no use dwelling on the past—instead, it’s better to focus on what can change and to take responsibility in the present.
Themes
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