Sadie Stein

Yeah, another big, fun, novel, immersive novel that I think I will be giving to a number of people this year for the holidays, and which I've already given to a bunch of people just for pleasure, is Adam Ross's Playworld.

And this is a coming-of-age novel set in the early 80s, Upper West Side, New York City.

It's about a child actor whose father is himself a performer and –

whose family is all involved with a therapist with questionable boundaries.

This is about the protagonist's relationship with a much older family friend, also a client of this therapist.

And it is about...

So many things.

It is about growing up too fast.

It is about parental ego.

It is about what memory does to how we think about youth.

It takes place right around where I live.

So that was...

just kind of fun and exciting for me.

But I hadn't read anything quite like it in a while.

And in some ways, it's an old-fashioned book.

But I think it's very much of the moment.

And I think it's an interesting way to look

at the changing mores of youth and childhood and sexuality some 40 years ago.

It's also just a good story.

Oh, it's upsetting for sure.