Playworld, by Adam Ross, is a long, often dense, sometimes directionless novel about a teenage actor’s coming of age in early 1980s NYC. But more so, it’s about adults being constantly and consistently disappointing.
I should’ve loved this — it feels like a throwback novel. There are some Dreiser vibes here, especially An American Tragedy (so it’s likely not a coincidence our character here is named Griffin, which is close enough to Griffiths?). Griffin is tossed along on an ocean of circumstance (naturalism, anyone?), and dealing with issues not of his making and far above his maturity level — a gross wrestling coach, an affair with an older woman, paying for his own schooling, a small amount of notoriety from his acting, etc.
This should’ve worked splendidly, but…it just felt aimless. None of Griffin’s individual issues, which are HUGE DEALS, ever really felt like they were given the weight they deserved. Instead, we spend a ton of time on Griffin’s first age-appropriate crush — which, had that been the novel, would’ve been fine (and the book would’ve been about 200 pages shorter).
The biggest issue in Griffin’s life, however, is how every adult he wants to rely on — teachers, coaches, his fellow actors, and most notably his parents — lets him down. It feels to him like every adult in his life is just playacting at being an adult. Others have compared this novel to a slightly more modern The Catcher In The Rye, but Griffin is not nearly as adept at Holden Caulfield at identifying the phonies. So it’s no wonder Griffin struggles.
Look, Ross is a magnificently astute writer -- he's really good at crafting long (again, often dense) paragraphs teasing out a single idea. I loved these and often looked forward to them more than the next plot point. And I will definitely read whatever it is he does next (though it's been 15 years between novels, so who knows), but this was a miss for me.
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