Playworld

‘A masterpiece . . . you could turn to almost any page and find a phrase that in another book would stand out like a beacon . . . a rightful heir to Lolita and Catcher in the Rye . . . a major literary achievement’ Observer

‘A heady novel about New York in the 1980s that dives headlong into murky territory with a frenetic, cinematic energy . . . a gallery of widescreen vignettes of 1980s Manhattan. Read it slowly and savour its memoirish richness’ Sunday Times

‘Redolent with insight, tenderness and forgiveness ... Ross’s powers of observation and sensation seem to invade every nook of these lives… compressed under the pressure of time and genius into a cluster of literary gems… Such is the stuff great novels are made on.’ Washington Post, ‘10 Best Books of 2025’

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 Griffin meets Naomi Shah, twenty-two years his senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink - whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren - 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.

The story of a sentimental 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. 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.

'A gorgeous cat's cradle of a book' New York Times

‘Extraordinary… I didn’t want it to end. The story is so rich and filled with intriguing - if morally questionable - characters that it’s immersive… This entire review could be made up of sentences I underlined for their beauty.’ Los Angeles Times

‘A marvel… Playworld conjures, in beautiful sentences, a bygone New York, when money and culture linked arms, recalling Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch’ Boston Globe

© 2026 Simon & Schuster Audio UK (Audiobook): 9781398559776

Release date

Audiobook: 23 April 2026