How could I not gush about a novel about life in Manhattan that loves New York City as much as I do, set in a time when the other boroughs didn't matter? To be sure, Adam Ross can be guilty of overwriting at times, but he's easily forgiven because of the quality and accuracy of his prose, and the poignance with which he describes an adolescence that literally could not have occurred anywhere else.
Adults, I think now, were the ocean in which I swam, reflects Griffin Hurt, his 14-year-old protagonist, looking back at the loss of his virginity to a much older Long Island housewife who, in retrospect may have been more needy than attractive. He and Oren, his younger, smarter brother have been traumatized by an event that results in what some might call indentured servitude as a child actor on The Nuclear Family, a situation comedy shot at 30 Rock.
Griffin's beloved but neglectful parents, distracted by their own careers and studies, give him and Oren a lot of latitude and the whole family is in therapy with the same shrink who seems to deliver only platitudes until the novel's emotionally wrenching end. If Griffin had his druthers, he would devote himself to sports and girls, like a "normal" kid in flyover country, but he's got way too much to contend with, including both physical and sexual abuse by his wrestling coach.
It sounds like a lot, and it is, but Playland is not about victimization. Narrated from an adult perspective, it's about resilience and coming to a decision that is, in some respects, as hard as Sophie's Choice.
Along the way, Ross deeply immerses readers into Griffin's various realms, which include Dungeons and Dragons as well as acting and wrestling. That none particularly interest me made no difference at all because they matter so much--good and bad--to Griffin, surely one of the most memorable fictional teenagers since Holden Caulfield.
It was, in short, their [wrestlers’] style, fully realized, expressed as control of the moment, of their lives, which I, forced to play parts I did not seek, emulated . . . Upon my arrival at such proficiency, it promised what I wanted most, which was to dictate my own destiny, no matter who the opponent standing before me was, and amid all the tumult, it felt like an assurance from the future, a half whisper that said, Keep going.
At the same time, Griffin is growing up in the real world, where the hostage crisis in Iran, the murder of John Lennon, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan are just background noise as he tries to navigate his insanely overbooked life. How could they not be? He's invited to read for an auteurist film director, getting the kind of break that stuns his Jewish father, who barely gets by recording radio commercials that have made him semi-famous while envying his more steadily employed son.
Talent, I thought. That great leveler. Smasher of gates and all-access pass. Velvet-rope opener and the penthouse view. Follow me please, says the maître d’ to talent, I have our best table waiting. That uniquely and unfairly bestowed gift America had figured out how to tap more efficiently and mercilessly than any other country in history. It should be written on the goddamn Statue of Liberty: Give me your talented, your gifted, your huddled geniuses, yearning to breathe free. That was our country’s exceptionalism—her thrown-wide-open doors she might just as suddenly slam shut.
Playworld is at least partially autobiographical. Ross, born to show biz parents, dedicates the novel to them and his brother. He wrestled at an elite high school and played the title character's son in The Seduction of Joe Tynan. He casts real actors in Take Two, Griffin's feature film debut, and renders them with the same, slightly exaggerated verve he brings to multiple set pieces, including learning how to drive a Ferrari with a stick shift and the arcane dialect Hampton country club juniors use when discussing their golf game.
Like nearly all film actors I’d ever met, there was something outsized about the features of each woman. [Jill] Clayburgh’s mouth was disproportionately wide. While [Shelley] Duvall, thin as a needlefish, was as tall-necked as Alice after eating the caterpillar’s mushroom.
Ross certainly has an eye, ear and a nose for detail as I knew from the outset. The Hurts reside in Lincoln Towers, the housing complex that my first apartment faced and Griffin's affair with the very sympathetically drawn Naomi--whose ministrations mostly mitigate her abuse--begins on "Dead Street," where cars parked just beyond my window. If his baroque descriptions occasionally induce an eye roll they nonetheless capture what it actually sounded and smelled like to reside in New York long before hybrid vehicles, silent swipes and contactless taps.
But here was the bus, finally, which stopped and growled, its engine giving off a hot diesel stink, its doors’ pistons popping and hissing when they opened . . . The tokens, as the driver pressed the plunger, jangled like maracas filled with pirates’ gold.
But capturing what falling in love feels like is where Playworld makes its most indelible mark. The first cut really is the deepest and while Ross blissfully conveys that truly unique moment for Griffin, he doubles its narrative impact by showing how the experience, when buffed by time and maturity, can become a tragic life lesson, the kind that can indelibly bind a narcissistic father with his confused, impressionistic son. Each is vividly conveyed in chapters that soar as high as any Manhattan skyscraper, fueled with romance, anti-Semitism, photography and spot-on allusions that range from Shakespeare to film noir.
You could never exhaust the totality of this city any more than you could the knowledge of another person, or yourself.
Ross comes pretty close, though in this magnificently overstuffed novel.
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