Playworld
āA heady novel about New York in the 1980s that dives headlong into murky territory with a frenetic, cinematic energy . a gallery of widescreen vignettes of 1980s Manhattan. Read it slowly and savour its memoirish richnessā Sunday Times āRedolent with insight, tenderness and forgiveness . Rossās powers of observation and sensation seem to invade every nook of these livesā¦ compressed under the pressure of time and genius into a cluster of literary gemsā¦ Such is the stuff great novels are made on.ā Washington Post, ā10 Best Books of 2025ā āExtraordinaryā¦ I didnāt want it to end. The story is so rich and filled with intriguing - if morally questionable - characters that itās immersiveā¦ This entire review could be made up of sentences I underlined for their beauty.ā Los Angeles Times āA marvelā¦ PlayworldĀ conjures, in beautiful sentences, a bygone New York, when money and culture linked arms, recalling Donna TarttāsĀ The GoldfinchāĀ Boston Globe 'A gorgeous cat's cradle of a book' New York Times
Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV showĀ The Nuclear FamilyĀ and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep - along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach - he's teetering on the edge of collapse.
Then Griffin meets Naomi Shah, twenty-two years his senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink - whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren - Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomiās Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.
The story of a sentimental miseducation,Ā PlayworldĀ is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era. Surrounded by adults who embody the ageās excesses - and who seem to care little about what their children are up to - Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.
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Description
āA heady novel about New York in the 1980s that dives headlong into murky territory with a frenetic, cinematic energy . a gallery of widescreen vignettes of 1980s Manhattan. Read it slowly and savour its memoirish richnessā Sunday Times āRedolent with insight, tenderness and forgiveness . Rossās powers of observation and sensation seem to invade every nook of these livesā¦ compressed under the pressure of time and genius into a cluster of literary gemsā¦ Such is the stuff great novels are made on.ā Washington Post, ā10 Best Books of 2025ā āExtraordinaryā¦ I didnāt want it to end. The story is so rich and filled with intriguing - if morally questionable - characters that itās immersiveā¦ This entire review could be made up of sentences I underlined for their beauty.ā Los Angeles Times āA marvelā¦ PlayworldĀ conjures, in beautiful sentences, a bygone New York, when money and culture linked arms, recalling Donna TarttāsĀ The GoldfinchāĀ Boston Globe 'A gorgeous cat's cradle of a book' New York Times
Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV showĀ The Nuclear FamilyĀ and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep - along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach - he's teetering on the edge of collapse.
Then Griffin meets Naomi Shah, twenty-two years his senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink - whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren - Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomiās Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.
The story of a sentimental miseducation,Ā PlayworldĀ is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era. Surrounded by adults who embody the ageās excesses - and who seem to care little about what their children are up to - Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.
