Playworld by Adam Ross

 

This is a coming of age novel that is getting tons of buzz.  Griffin Hurt lives in Manhattan and goes to private school which he pays for.  Griffin is an actor and stars in a children's superhero television show.  He has also done movies and commercials.  His parents are also in the arts.  His father is also an actor although he has never gotten that big breakthrough.  His mother was a ballet teacher and now is a Pilates instructor.  Griffin also has a younger brother Oren who is interested in business and making money.  Griffin is about to make a major breakthrough in acting with a movie about to come out but he isn't sure at all that he wants to be an actor.

But things aren't going well on the romantic front.  Griffin is in love with Amanda who dangles him on a string while dating a boy several years older.  Griffin isn't sure what love is so accepts this behavior hoping she will change her mind.  But he is mostly around adults and is abused by two adults in his life.  His wresting coach is known for his attentions to the boys on the team, taking them to his apartment or the practice mats during school breaks.  

Then there is Naomi.  She is married with two children and twenty-two years older than Griffin.  She and her husband are good friends with Griffin's parents.  But she falls in love with Griffin.  They meet daily, going in her car to a secluded place where he spills his troubles to her and they kiss.  At first that is all it is but when Griffin is sent to spend the summer with her and her family while his father is on tour and his mother visits family, she seduces Griffin and introduces him to sex.  Griffin's parents are on the verge of divorce and he welcomes not only the sex but the feeling that he is the most important person in the world to someone else.  

Adam Ross is an author and editor of the Sewanee Review.  Griffin is fairly autobiographical as Ross was also a child actor and had parents in the theatre world.  He also was a wrestler and there is lots of informed talk about wrestling and what it means to those who take up that sport.  Griffin is left to basically raise himself, free to wander in and out of his apartment at will, to go places with his friends and to try to determine what he wants in life without a lot of adult guidance.  The fact that he encounters two adults who want sexual favors from him is arresting and while it has hints of Dustin Hoffman and Mrs. Robinson, Griffin is much younger and unable to process the encounters.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.