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"  Charles Bock grew up in his parents&amp;#039; Las Vegas pawnshop. He saw the broken walk through the door. He listened to their stories -- the older men who slid their wedding rings across the glass, the UNLV basketball players who hawked their championship trophies, the midwestern housewives looking for just one more shot. For ten years, he wrote those stories down. At last, his first novel, Beautiful Children (Random House, $26), about a teenager who vanishes into the glow of the Strip, will be published this January. It&amp;#039;s wholly original -- dirty, fast, and hypnotic. The sentences flicker and skip and whirl, like the neon city Bock writes about. It will change the way you look at Las Vegas. A seven-sentence preview: To thumping bass sounds, Cheri, if the whim struck her, could unwrap her schoolgirl&amp;#039;s skirt. She could twirl her blouse above her head and chuck her bra at a table of nearby admirers. Could spread her arms in a crucifixion pose and tilt her head as far backward as it would go, arching back, extending the points of her bare and spectacular breasts toward the tinted spotlights. And here, as sweat dripped from her shadowed and glitter-covered outline, Cheri could wiggle out of her spangled G-string. Never mind that she&amp;#039;d sweated tonight&amp;#039;s supply of painkillers out of her system. Never mind that when she shifted her weight, her yeast infection flared. Cheri was mentally strong; she could block out that shit.  This story is part of our second annual register of emerging ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does. &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Read Previous * [Back to Esquire 100] * Read Next &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3342/122words1007/>