Playworld

A Novel

De: Adam Ross

Narrado por: Adam Ross

WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE • A big and big-hearted novel—one enthralling, transformative year in the life of a child actor coming of age in a bygone Manhattan, from the critically acclaimed author of Mr. Peanut

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER, NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, TOWN & COUNTRY, AND PEOPLE • GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE FINALIST • MULANEY READS BOOK CLUB PICK

"A gorgeous cat's cradle of a book . . . The swirling vapors of Holden Caulfield are present in Playworld, for sure, but also Lolita, Willy Loman, Garp." —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary . . . A beguiling ode to a lost era . . . Line for line the book is a revelation." —Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times

“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.”

Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family 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 comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.

Less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation, Playworld 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—with Jimmy Carter on his way out and a B-list celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in. Surrounded by adults who embody the age’s 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.

Adam Ross is a master.

Its official - I will read anything this man writes. I enjoyed his narration, as well.

The analogies and descriptions.

Insights into psychology and description of growing up in the city weee so realistic and insightful .

Did not like narration

I liked this story and I can understand why an author would want to narrate his own work. But please, please hire a professional narrator for your next novel! I cannot explain why, but the author's voice/cadence or something just grated on my nerves. I almost had to quit several times but just read the book at home and only listened to it in the car. I wish I could have experienced it with a different person narrating, as I think I would have enjoyed it much more.

It does take you to a new place !

Propulsive and at the same time ., thought provoking and powerful display of story telling and portrayal

Enjoyable book marred by narration.

Adam Ross does his book no favors by narrating it himself. He has an unfortunate habit of turning simple sentences into two, three or four word phrases. It is a very annoying habit.