Description

A big and bighearted novelone 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 A brilliant powerful and memorable book The New York Times

In the fall of 1980 when I was fourteen a friend of myparentsnamed Naomi Shah fell in love with me She was thirtysix a mother of two and married to a wealthy man Like so many things that happened to me that year itdidntseem strange at the time

Griffin Hurt is in over his head Between his role asPeter Proton onthe hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high schoolat New Yorks elite Boyd Prepalong withtheincreasingly compromisingdemands of his wrestling coachhes teetering on the edge ofcollapse

Then comes Naomi Shah twentytwo yearsGriffinsseniorUnwilling to layhisburdenson his shrinkwhom he shares withhisfather mother and younger brother OrenGriffinsoon finds himselfin the back ofNaomisMercedessedanagain and againconfessing all tothe oneperson who mightdo 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 erawithJimmy Carter on his way out and a Blist celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in Surrounded by adults who embody theagesexcessesandwho seem to care little about what their children are up toGriffin is left to himself to find theline between youth and maturitydependenceand loveacting andtrulygrappling with life