Playworld

🍎 Miseducation in 1980s Manhattan 🍎

Prepare to be transported to a time when parents were often oblivious to their children's lives and, in this case, to the complex interior world of a teenage boy striving to make sense of the messy universe of adults.

Griffin Hurt, a child actor enrolled in a prestigious prep school, constantly struggles to keep up with his homework, memorize lines, and manage his mediocre wrestling career. However, these responsibilities pale in comparison to his dealings with Kepplemen, his wrestling coach, whose boundaries can best be described as murky, and Naomi Shah, a rich and lonely friend of his parents who has fallen madly in love with him.

Murmurings and shadows of John Irving's writing snake through the book against the backdrop of uptown Manhattan—Fifth Avenue, the reservoir, the boathouse, the Met, the Guggenheim—culminating in one hell of an ending.