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Playworld: A Novel

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Description

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. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf


Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 7, 2025


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 528 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385351291


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 94


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.68 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.42 x 1.65 x 9.41 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #308,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #999 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #3,765 in Literary Fiction (Books) #34,137 in Romance (Books)


#999 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books):


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Top Amazon Reviews


  • Great Story
Format: Hardcover
The book was listed as “gently used” and arrived in very good condition. And, as a bonus, it’s a really enjoyable novel. Most definitely a good purchase.
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2026 by Mark Rogers

  • It is overly long, interesting though...
Format: Kindle
This book was basically a love letter to New York, in the 80's, the upper west side anyway. I KNEW it had to be autobiographical, mostly, though I knew nothing about the author beforehand, the "about the author" was insanely brief or non-existent, I think it's the former. I looked him up afterwards. I was right! I love being right! Who doesn't? 😉 Onto the writing + the story. Let me first state that I generally LOVE long, involved books. The more captivating a book is, the more I want of it. Then it's like a grieving when it's over. Also, I'm a voracious reader & will read almost any genre + topic, fiction or nonfiction, starting at 4 yrs old. I've only ever not finished a book maybe twice in my life, it has to be sooo bad/boring, I couldn't care less, etc. for me to put down. I DID finish this book and I enjoyed it to a good degree. However, it is overly long in my opinion, or overly long in the wrong ways & areas. More depth/description to things I did find fascinating or interesting would have been welcomed. There is SO much detail to almost everything, like paint drying, grass growing detail. About every place he goes + sees (ala the NY love letter). Things that don't feed the plot or really even matter. Yes, he can write! Yes, he can write beautiful imagery, but I feel like it was for himself, not the reader. To stroke his ego, flex his literary muscles, as it were. Capisce? Almost masturbatory. I was so over the 10 trillion descriptions of things + places I didn't care about or that went on far too long & it didn't make me care about them! Simply made me read faster and faster to get to the things I did care about +/or sadly, to get to the end of the book. Whereas there were do many details + yes, descriptions lacking on the things I did find interesting, again. Speaking of masturbation, HOW does a 14-15 yr old boy in a big city, w/plenty of not so innocent friends, family + a younger, wiser, smarter & more informed younger brother, AND in the industry, in the 80's no less, not know or at least have heard about masturbation? Especially when I've read that boys have started at 10, 11, 12, shockingly young ages & he's never even heard of it? That was really surprising + unbelievable to me. In a thousand ways. Did he never wash his penis in the shower? Did he never scratch it or his balls casually at night in bed? Even after being w/Naomi? In the age of MTV and VHS'? Even the unspeakable crap w/his twisted wrestling coach? Also, there was alcohol everywhere, being served to children left & right, again in NY. not kids sneakily trying to buy or get it, just out in the open. Weird. Amazon recommended this to me, based on my reading, so I read a few reviews and critics were falling all over themselves to say that this was another Catcher in the rye. C'mon. Just because it's another bildungsroman doesn't make it that. Not to mention catcher made it's point and got it's story across in like 1/16th of the pages. Haha There is a bit of my opinion + thoughts. I'm glad to have read it, but could do with a more condensed version. Just because u can write lovely, flowery descriptions doesn't mean u have to write them unceasingly. 😊 ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2025 by Julie Trotter

  • Great writer gets lost
Format: Hardcover
This novel starts out great and is riveting and then gets lost in a high school wrestling rabbit hole.
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2025 by Barnaby Dinges

  • A superb emotional ride giving breathtaking nostalgia
Format: Kindle
It’s brilliant in so many ways that any description I share will not do it justice. The author has created characters you can’t help but become deeply fond of and he's masterfully captured a bygone era with such exquisite detail you’ll find yourself so deeply immersed in the story that you won't want to let go of it even after you’ve read the last page. Adult Griffin reflects on the year 1980 when he was a prep school freshman in Manhattan, an older brother, son of a commercial voiceover actor, child actor himself, devoted wrestler who endures unspeakable trauma, in analysis with friend-of-the-family therapist who also treats his entire family, making social situations interesting, as if the sessions weren’t awkward enough. You’ll see. Suffice it to say, Griffin has quite a bit going on. Is he ever observant. He’s getting the kind of education money can’t buy from a female contemporary of his parents, who takes more than a little interest in him. What an absolute pleasure to read this book. It has earned its place as one of my favorites. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2025 by carilynp

  • Very very wordy
Format: Kindle
I enjoyed this story. Its happy, sad, funny, startling. The characters are real, flawed, actual people. It confirms that families are made up of individuals existing both independently and as a unit. The writing is very flowery, every this is described in detail, lots of detail.
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2025 by Unknown

  • Excellent, Exquisitely Written!
Format: Kindle
Phenomenal. Style reminiscent of male mid-20th century literary giants. There are passages so beautifully written it felt like I was THERE. It was wonderful to explore the world of an interesting adolescent boy enduring all the things that are allegedly supposed to shatter them, and yet they must continue on because to do anything else would be cowardly. A world before cell phones and widespread use of the internet, when the youths were largely left on their own to sink, swim, or flounder. A book to revisit every few years. Brilliant. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2026 by JARuthe

  • Worth the Read
Format: Hardcover
Engaging novel. Its protagonist lives permanently in my mind.
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2026 by Ed McClarty

  • Almost got there....
Format: Kindle
This good book was a few edits short of great for me. It is a coming-of-age story set in 1980's NYC that is moving and painful at times, but other times gets bogged down in too-long descriptions and tangents. The second half was better than the first half, I thought. Griffin's visit to Amanda's house in Westhampton was extremely well done, for example. But really the story needed to be tightened up throughout. Also, this is a smaller thing, but some of the details did not seem possible for the age of the characters (e.g., not knowing what masturbation is at age 14 but being able to easily buy alcoholic beverages at a bar on vacation at age 12). I think these off details bothered me because most of the book captured adolescence pretty accurately. Anyway, I would definitely recommend this book to more serious readers! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2025 by AWL

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