Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adam Ross.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
How are you, buddy, I'm well, sir, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show.
We've got lots to talk about, in particular Playworld, the
new novel. You know, I do a lot of author
interviews on my show, and sometimes I feel like it's
such a news junkie day and age that I don't
know how well received they often are. You are the
first author in all the years, so fifteen years I've
(00:24):
been doing this particular show, and then I was doing
Top forty long before that that people have been telling
me about your book.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That's so cool to hear. Wait, wait, remind me tell
me your name again.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
My name is Vinnie Penn and it's the Vinnie Penn Project.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, great, great, great name, you know, I mean Playworld.
I was just like any author would just keep their
fingers crossed and hope for, you know, some degree of
coverage of their book. But it's just been dream come
true experience to have such great critics, you know, whether
(01:01):
it's Ron Charles at the Washington Post or Lee Haber
for the La Times, or Alexander Jacobs the New York
Times book review or Sam Sachs at the Wall Street
Journal or Hamilton Kine at Boston Grob. I mean these
like really terrific critics to engage your work. I mean
it's just I really feel like I'm in a state
of surface, right. I mean, it's just like it's a
(01:23):
you know, if you write something as long as Playworld,
as big as Playworld, if you put in as much
time as I put in the Playworld, you know, you
sort of hope against hope that it will be received
with a with a high degree of seriousness. And that's
I mean, there's no point in sort of like being
tight knit with humility about that. It's really more like,
(01:44):
I just I'm really lucky. I got really lucky in
terms of that. It's reception.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I spotted on my own a blurb I forget who
was do you know where I'm heading? It was an author.
So the book that must be read right now, it's
Donna tar set in the eighties, meets something else. It's
a mosteret some very popular author. Some of my daughter's
a really big fan of.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh, I know, I know it is. It's allan Hildebrand.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hildebrand exactly right. Who's been on my Yes, she's been
on my show several times, so there you have.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yes, she's amazing. The thing is, the funny thing is like,
in a way, that's what I'm talking about, because I
don't know Min's Hilda Brand. I don't know her. Yeah,
and she she way out to me, and it was
one of those things where again you just feel maybe
it's because I'm a New Yorker who's lived in the
South for so many years, so many decades, but you
(02:37):
feel kind of.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Blessed when she dropped the don Tart in there. My daughter,
as I said, she's a twenty two years old voracious
reader loves Dona Tart, so I told her immediately about this, right,
just setting it in the eighties. Hello, I'm still kind
of living in the eighties in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
So yeah, I think we all do. I think all
of us get xers do, right, I mean in this
sense where I mean that I would assume that on
a generational generational level, everyone is traveling around with their
own sort of historical context in their heads saying, gosh,
what a strange world has become. I mean, I think
one of the things that always makes gen X an
interesting generation is gen X was the generation that that
(03:19):
just so firmly straddled both the analog and digital world,
and so so, just for instance, talking to you because
you're on our iHeart radio, right, I mean, look at
look at the way in which the landscape of radio change,
and look at the land which what radio's place was
for us back then versus what its place is now.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I think we love it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
We are we are a generation that has had to
be highly highly highly adaptable and has straddled paradigm shifts
in everything from how we communicate to how we consume maritana.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I love it. I love it. You're you're leading me
right to the water that I was heading to anyway.
And when we try to hold on to something, we're
called old men shouting at clouds because you only have
a few months on me. We're the exact same age
I'm going to be. You know, I was born in
sixty seven too, I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So I remember the arrival of Frank Miller. I remember
the size shift in the comic book world, a world
I still gleefully inhabit, so I you know, I remember
what he did there. So that's another reason I could
I was.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I was just talking with somebody about that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, so I was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I was just talking with somebody yesterday about a really
duke out there listeners that talking about growing up with
everything from Chris Claremont and John Burn to Walt Simonson
to Frank Miller name. So then like transitioning into like
Alan Moore, I mean, like.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, like Watchman. I was so hesitant. It was I'm like,
this is too grown up, And then all of a
sudden I was fully immersed because I wanted my comic
books just still have that dit sort of in a sense,
and those days were over and they needed to be over.
I can't wait for Daredevil to return too. But I digress,
and my plan was to read it and hesa, I'm
(05:10):
going to send you a PDF. And as a child
of the eighties, Adam, I don't know if you're gonna
be with this or not. I don't want to people,
I don't want to. I want it in my hands.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't read on no kindle.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I don't want to. I want to. I want to read.
I can't zoom in that way. I want to feel
the hardcover. I want to open it up. I want
to see the graphics. I want to read the thank
you notes. I still buy vinyl, you know what I mean.
I want to read the lyrics, so I have not
gotten a copy, so I don't even really know much.
I don't know what the book's about. It feels very
(05:42):
camera and crow to me because there's this autobiographic it's
a it's about a child actor who I think might
be you.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I mean, i'll spit it out here. I mean, so
it's about you know, it's about it. It's about a
It's about a child actor, Griffin Hurts. It begins in
fall in nineteen eighty and it basically goes through the
fall of nineteen eighty one, so you cover the end
of the Carter administration in the beginning of the right,
and it's about he's a freshman in high school. He
(06:13):
is really struggling to balance a life where he, you know,
he's he's he's gone from public school into a fancy
private school where he's under all sorts of academic pressure,
but he still has obligations to do this show. And
he's just he's becoming he's he's he's a successful young actor.
(06:37):
But it's also something where like it's really important that
like one of the sort of time travel aspects about
it is he's a New York actor, and New York actors,
especially back then, we're a completely different breed. What do
I mean by that? I mean, like there was you know,
(06:57):
if you think about, for instance, some of the TV
shows of the time, you know, whether it was like
Roda or Soap, you know what I mean, Like, you
know what I mean, like these were these were like
Barney Miller, right, I mean, these are like these are
like low production, uh kind of high drama, high comedy,
(07:23):
but in the sense that like the actors in it looked,
smelled and tasted like New Yorkers, and there was an
element of like high ethnicity in it, right, I mean,
like again, like there was a real sort of level
of realism. And also it was just like a very
small scale kind of thing. So Griffin is on this
like edutainment show called Nuclear Family, which is a show
(07:46):
that's a little bit like Adam West's Batman, which is
like it it has a tongue in cheet quality, which
which grown ups can appreciate and even some grown ups watch,
but it's also like a quote unquote Late Morning Kids
Saturday morning show. Yeah, but he's also you know, he's
also he's a kid who and this is where, you know,
(08:08):
you get into some of the more important thematics of
the book. He's a kid who is really dealing with
two predatory adults. Now there, of course, there are lots
of narratives these days and over the last several years
about predatory adults in kids' lives. But I think one
of the things that makes gen X unique, and this
is where I think you and I can really talk
(08:29):
about a lot of stuff, is then we grew up
in a period where our parents had no idea what
we were doing, no and so the way in which
the way in which and to me that is very
generationally specific. And so the way in which these parents
didn't know what we were doing speaks to the same
(08:52):
kind of deregulated small government that Ronald Reagan really champion right.
It's like it's like it was deregulated parenting, right, and
and that had consequences. And so really part of what
Playworld is trying to do is immerse the reader in
(09:17):
a world and a time that that that in some
ways that in some ways could seem like freak in
Mars because of the way in which we lived in
terms of and we lived in terms of media, the
way in which we consumed media, the freedom that we
had as children to to move around the world and
(09:38):
be unsupervised. But also is very much like everyone's childhood
in the sense that all of us in childhood have
had experiences, oftentimes with adults where we didn't have language
for what just happened to us. And we spend years,
(09:59):
in years and years trying to decode or give language
to some of those experiences. And that would that's what
really playwold, That's what Playworld is about. I mean, Playworld
is about this kid in this very seminal year who
has certain experiences that the reader, you know, the reader
(10:21):
goes with him on a journey as he's coming to
understand what these moments are. So whether it's like, you know,
Griffin's like really into wrestling, but he's not a very
good wrestler, and so it's it's his first experience with
the desire to get good at something because of his
(10:43):
you know, it's he falls in love with a young
person for the first time, and you go on that
ride with him and he sees he sees his parents
go through the first like really major stress tests in
their marriage. And he's also got a brother with whom
is you know, as it were, his his his other
(11:07):
audience member to some of these experiences. But as with
all siblings, like his brother is also having a completely
different set of experiences, and it's about the way in
which their relationship changes and stays the same over the
course of this like seminal year. So for me, like dude,
sometimes I think a playworld that's like historical fiction, like
(11:31):
like and and and and the reason it's perfect for
somebody like you is because your recognition of it, I think,
is going to be something that you're going to really
enjoy as somebody who is there. Yeah, and and I
think I think the reason that people who you know,
who have really just loved it who aren't of that
era is because they they they look, they just hear
(11:55):
about this era when some of these things were so different,
when there wasn't the same degree of cynicism, when there
was just you know, my children and my two daughters
constantly say like, I would have given anything to have
had your childhood.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
My kids say that all the time. They sometimes they'll
even say it in anger, you know, yeah, yeah, which
I found interesting because they have so many advancements and whatnot.
They think of the I think Stranger Things played a
big role in it because they just think of the
eighties as this glorious time where I was off and
(12:30):
they're not wrong. Like you said, I was gone for
the day and mom and dad had no GPS on me.
There was there was an extraordinary freedom. But they act
like there were no madmen in the world, you know,
and nothing, you know, there was nothing to be afraid of,
and it's like that's not necessarily true either. Let me
ask you, I.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Really got but I'm really glad you mentioned Stranger Things though,
because I want to say something like one of the
things that's funny to me, I remember, you know, because
obviously I haven't worked on this book for a long time.
I remember watching Stranger Things when it came out, and
you know, I loved some of the markers as it
were of the eighties, like even though I grew up
(13:10):
in New York City, like I was one of those
kids who was on my bike all the time. But
you know, one of the things that I yeah, but
one of the things that Stranger Things made literal, which
was like the the monstrousness, the creatureliness of the world,
(13:31):
the the monstrous danger of the world. When literally, I
mean like in Stranger Things, there are literal monsters. There
are gorgans, et cetera, et cetera, and mind flares, you know.
In in Griffin's world, the monsters are our people.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, and Griffin is very holden too. Was that a choice?
It's very holden.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Well, the you know, it's funny, you know people some
people talk about the book having the sort of vapors
of Holding Callfield like I. You know, the funny thing
was when I was around thirteen years old and it
came time to read Catcher in the Rye in school,
you know, the you know, so many kids around me
(14:19):
who are a little bit older were like, oh my god,
you're gonna read Catcher in the Rye. It's going to
change your life, blah blah blah. And when I first
read Catcher in the Rye, I was actually very annoyed
by Holding Callfield.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yes, so you and I should obviously hang out, because
that dude annoyed the hell out of me when I
was fourteen. I found him pretentious and a downer and
I that's just not who I was at fourteen. I've
never heard anyone else I call that sentiment. That's wild, right, And.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
That's the thing. Neither was I. And so I think
that one of the things is that it's not that
I uh, I think that I think that I think
that when people are talking, when when people talk about
the Catcher in the Rye aspect, I think that I
think that one of because I've read Catcher in the
Rye at least four times, and I appreciate Catcher in
(15:08):
the Rye, but I appreciate Catcher in the Rye more
from almost like a technical standpoint and a storytelling standpoint.
But I was not. I was not somebody who alied
to myself with holding Cawfield. I was not, you know,
there was you know, my initial reaction to him, which
he was kind of a He's kind of a whiner
(15:28):
and a Debbie downer and a depressive and that's not
what Griffin. That's not what Griffin is. But I do
think that what, you know, I think that that what
Salinger touched on was a certain kind of sense of
dislocation that kids feel, and a sense of adults being
(15:48):
strange and impossible to communicate with or difficult to communicate with. Uh.
You know, Griffin doesn't have that across the board in Playworld.
He he has a he has a very interesting and
a times fraught relationship with the family psychologist. He has
a very I think intimate and at times spraught relationship
(16:11):
with this older woman. Uh he hash. Okay, you know good,
but but I mean a little.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Benja, a little Benjamin Braddick, a dash of Benjamin Braddock
now too. I have to read this book, Adam. This,
this has to happen.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, oh yeah, no, I think you.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I have to ask it. So let me So I
wanted to say this to you. And again we're im
with Adam Ross. So the new book is Playworld. It's
been out since January. You might remember him from his
twenty ten novel Mister Peanut, which is actually my daughter's
nickname for me. This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
But it's because I look. According to her, I look
like mister Peanut. My head is shaped like. Yeah, you
(16:52):
have the two daughters, so you know where of I speak.
You do take your time between books, it would appear.
But it's so funny. I had no idea of the
year you were zeroed in on and I reference that
year often on my radio show because it was such
a pivotal year. You know, we had a current events class.
(17:12):
We were watching the Iran hostage crisis every day. It
was a very anxious year in a lot of ways
do and I wasn't an anxious kid. And I remember
the day that they were freed, and it was the
day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in and when it
got announced in school, and I remember being in the
playground and looking up at the sky and feeling like
something had been lifted. And I don't know if you
(17:34):
touch upon all that and here, and I wonder if
you ron.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Hostage crisis is constantly alluded to in Playworld, and there's
actually a chapter, the last chapter of part one is
called Hostages.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well, that's fair, And I would imagine the other huge
thing about nineteen eighty one for me and for guys
like us, I would say, I got a little something
called MTV debut.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, that's a big part of the rise of MTV
has an extraordinary impact on Griffin's life. At the end,
at the end of at the end of the.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Novel, would you say that it did on yours too?
Is that why you.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
There's a there's a chapter. There's a chapter in Playworld
called Video Killed the Radio Star. So I mean so
but but yeah, so, I mean, like one of the
one of the major events in Griffin's life. Griffin's father
is a voiceover guy. Wow, he's like a Broadway actor,
a voiceover guy. And when MTV comes into being, it's
(18:36):
like a gold rush for his father. I mean, I
mean because because suddenly there's a whole new form of media,
as it were, and again like disruptive, transformative media like that.
You know, it's one of the ways in which Playworld
signals some of the media disruptions that are coming down
the pipe. And it's disruptive in the broadest sense of
(18:56):
the word for Griffin's life, and that it's going to
change his life. You're not going to have everything to
talk about you talk about that year. We're going to
have everything to talk about, from the assassination of John
Lennon to the assassination intent of Truth Reagan.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
That was a huge part of that year too. I
mean my classroom that year, we didn't have music. My
teacher wore a black he was in mourning all year.
Mister Fusco, he put a black Armband in honor of
John Lennon. He wrote on the chalkboard John Lennon, you
know the year he was born to the year he died.
Whoever had to wash down the chalkboard was instructed not
to touch that. That was to stay up all year.
(19:32):
And we had no music class. It was Beatles. We
just learned about the Beatles. It was one of the
best classes I've ever had. You know, So that this
book just sounds intended for.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Me hearing from you that word of mouth is and
it's true very much alive is what you hope for.
That's the future of the book. It's the future of
the book, I think is people who were interested in
the eighties who might be younger and want to know
what that was like as a child and talking about it.
And it's absolutely to me. I mean, I feel like
(20:05):
it is a gen X Bible, and so it is
a book for a full set of decades beyond Reddy
ston Ellis's Less Than Zero or j mcinerne by That
Big City or you know, Tamma Janowitz. I mean like
it's a book that really zeros in on that era.
It really is for people like you to share.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I think you're gonna love it. I can't wait for you.
I will gladly come back on the show to talk
about it. And well, we can talk about specific moments,
because I think your experience of the assassination of John
Lennon's very different from mine. Really just like your your
well well, I mean just in terms of in the
best possible way. I mean, like where were you when?
How did you learn about it? What was the aftermath?
(20:47):
I mean, it's the story you're telling about your teacher
is fascinating, just like where were you when you know
Reagan got shot?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
What year was that? Again?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Reagan got shot? And I believe March of nineteen eighty
eighty one started market.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I mean, you really did pick a year that was
even more chock full. And I mean, and when I
say that, I refer to so often on my show,
but I wouldn't have put the Reagan assassination attempt in there.
I would have thought that was a little bit later.
There's lots to talk about. I have to read the book,
and there's going to be a part two to this conversation.
I will let Jordans know that know that today there
(21:23):
they're not We'll get you on next week again. I
can't wait, Adam Ross, this is great stuff. I think
this happened for a reason, and I appreciate you being
patient with me.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
No, no, probably, I can't wait. I can't wait to
come back on.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
All right, mommy, take care
Adam Ross.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
How are you, buddy, I'm well, sir, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show.
We've got lots to talk about, in particular Playworld, the
new novel. You know, I do a lot of author
interviews on my show, and sometimes I feel like it's
such a news junkie day and age that I don't
know how well received they often are. You are the
first author in all the years, so fifteen years I've
(00:24):
been doing this particular show, and then I was doing
Top forty long before that that people have been telling
me about your book.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That's so cool to hear. Wait, wait, remind me tell
me your name again.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
My name is Vinnie Penn and it's the Vinnie Penn Project.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, great, great, great name, you know, I mean Playworld.
I was just like any author would just keep their
fingers crossed and hope for, you know, some degree of
coverage of their book. But it's just been dream come
true experience to have such great critics, you know, whether
(01:01):
it's Ron Charles at the Washington Post or Lee Haber
for the La Times, or Alexander Jacobs the New York
Times book review or Sam Sachs at the Wall Street
Journal or Hamilton Kine at Boston Grob. I mean these
like really terrific critics to engage your work. I mean
it's just I really feel like I'm in a state
of surface, right. I mean, it's just like it's a
(01:23):
you know, if you write something as long as Playworld,
as big as Playworld, if you put in as much
time as I put in the Playworld, you know, you
sort of hope against hope that it will be received
with a with a high degree of seriousness. And that's
I mean, there's no point in sort of like being
tight knit with humility about that. It's really more like,
(01:44):
I just I'm really lucky. I got really lucky in
terms of that. It's reception.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I spotted on my own a blurb I forget who
was do you know where I'm heading? It was an author.
So the book that must be read right now, it's
Donna tar set in the eighties, meets something else. It's
a mosteret some very popular author. Some of my daughter's
a really big fan of.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh, I know, I know it is. It's allan Hildebrand.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hildebrand exactly right. Who's been on my Yes, she's been
on my show several times, so there you have.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yes, she's amazing. The thing is, the funny thing is like,
in a way, that's what I'm talking about, because I
don't know Min's Hilda Brand. I don't know her. Yeah,
and she she way out to me, and it was
one of those things where again you just feel maybe
it's because I'm a New Yorker who's lived in the
South for so many years, so many decades, but you
(02:37):
feel kind of.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Blessed when she dropped the don Tart in there. My daughter,
as I said, she's a twenty two years old voracious
reader loves Dona Tart, so I told her immediately about this, right,
just setting it in the eighties. Hello, I'm still kind
of living in the eighties in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
So yeah, I think we all do. I think all
of us get xers do, right, I mean in this
sense where I mean that I would assume that on
a generational generational level, everyone is traveling around with their
own sort of historical context in their heads saying, gosh,
what a strange world has become. I mean, I think
one of the things that always makes gen X an
interesting generation is gen X was the generation that that
(03:19):
just so firmly straddled both the analog and digital world,
and so so, just for instance, talking to you because
you're on our iHeart radio, right, I mean, look at
look at the way in which the landscape of radio change,
and look at the land which what radio's place was
for us back then versus what its place is now.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I think we love it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
We are we are a generation that has had to
be highly highly highly adaptable and has straddled paradigm shifts
in everything from how we communicate to how we consume maritana.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I love it. I love it. You're you're leading me
right to the water that I was heading to anyway.
And when we try to hold on to something, we're
called old men shouting at clouds because you only have
a few months on me. We're the exact same age
I'm going to be. You know, I was born in
sixty seven too, I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So I remember the arrival of Frank Miller. I remember
the size shift in the comic book world, a world
I still gleefully inhabit, so I you know, I remember
what he did there. So that's another reason I could
I was.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I was just talking with somebody about that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, so I was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I was just talking with somebody yesterday about a really
duke out there listeners that talking about growing up with
everything from Chris Claremont and John Burn to Walt Simonson
to Frank Miller name. So then like transitioning into like
Alan Moore, I mean, like.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, like Watchman. I was so hesitant. It was I'm like,
this is too grown up, And then all of a
sudden I was fully immersed because I wanted my comic
books just still have that dit sort of in a sense,
and those days were over and they needed to be over.
I can't wait for Daredevil to return too. But I digress,
and my plan was to read it and hesa, I'm
(05:10):
going to send you a PDF. And as a child
of the eighties, Adam, I don't know if you're gonna
be with this or not. I don't want to people,
I don't want to. I want it in my hands.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't read on no kindle.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I don't want to. I want to. I want to read.
I can't zoom in that way. I want to feel
the hardcover. I want to open it up. I want
to see the graphics. I want to read the thank
you notes. I still buy vinyl, you know what I mean.
I want to read the lyrics, so I have not
gotten a copy, so I don't even really know much.
I don't know what the book's about. It feels very
(05:42):
camera and crow to me because there's this autobiographic it's
a it's about a child actor who I think might
be you.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I mean, i'll spit it out here. I mean, so
it's about you know, it's about it. It's about a
It's about a child actor, Griffin Hurts. It begins in
fall in nineteen eighty and it basically goes through the
fall of nineteen eighty one, so you cover the end
of the Carter administration in the beginning of the right,
and it's about he's a freshman in high school. He
(06:13):
is really struggling to balance a life where he, you know,
he's he's he's gone from public school into a fancy
private school where he's under all sorts of academic pressure,
but he still has obligations to do this show. And
he's just he's becoming he's he's he's a successful young actor.
(06:37):
But it's also something where like it's really important that
like one of the sort of time travel aspects about
it is he's a New York actor, and New York actors,
especially back then, we're a completely different breed. What do
I mean by that? I mean, like there was you know,
(06:57):
if you think about, for instance, some of the TV
shows of the time, you know, whether it was like
Roda or Soap, you know what I mean, Like, you
know what I mean, like these were these were like
Barney Miller, right, I mean, these are like these are
like low production, uh kind of high drama, high comedy,
(07:23):
but in the sense that like the actors in it looked,
smelled and tasted like New Yorkers, and there was an
element of like high ethnicity in it, right, I mean,
like again, like there was a real sort of level
of realism. And also it was just like a very
small scale kind of thing. So Griffin is on this
like edutainment show called Nuclear Family, which is a show
(07:46):
that's a little bit like Adam West's Batman, which is
like it it has a tongue in cheet quality, which
which grown ups can appreciate and even some grown ups watch,
but it's also like a quote unquote Late Morning Kids
Saturday morning show. Yeah, but he's also you know, he's
also he's a kid who and this is where, you know,
(08:08):
you get into some of the more important thematics of
the book. He's a kid who is really dealing with
two predatory adults. Now there, of course, there are lots
of narratives these days and over the last several years
about predatory adults in kids' lives. But I think one
of the things that makes gen X unique, and this
is where I think you and I can really talk
(08:29):
about a lot of stuff, is then we grew up
in a period where our parents had no idea what
we were doing, no and so the way in which
the way in which and to me that is very
generationally specific. And so the way in which these parents
didn't know what we were doing speaks to the same
(08:52):
kind of deregulated small government that Ronald Reagan really champion right.
It's like it's like it was deregulated parenting, right, and
and that had consequences. And so really part of what
Playworld is trying to do is immerse the reader in
(09:17):
a world and a time that that that in some
ways that in some ways could seem like freak in
Mars because of the way in which we lived in
terms of and we lived in terms of media, the
way in which we consumed media, the freedom that we
had as children to to move around the world and
(09:38):
be unsupervised. But also is very much like everyone's childhood
in the sense that all of us in childhood have
had experiences, oftentimes with adults where we didn't have language
for what just happened to us. And we spend years,
(09:59):
in years and years trying to decode or give language
to some of those experiences. And that would that's what
really playwold, That's what Playworld is about. I mean, Playworld
is about this kid in this very seminal year who
has certain experiences that the reader, you know, the reader
(10:21):
goes with him on a journey as he's coming to
understand what these moments are. So whether it's like, you know,
Griffin's like really into wrestling, but he's not a very
good wrestler, and so it's it's his first experience with
the desire to get good at something because of his
(10:43):
you know, it's he falls in love with a young
person for the first time, and you go on that
ride with him and he sees he sees his parents
go through the first like really major stress tests in
their marriage. And he's also got a brother with whom
is you know, as it were, his his his other
(11:07):
audience member to some of these experiences. But as with
all siblings, like his brother is also having a completely
different set of experiences, and it's about the way in
which their relationship changes and stays the same over the
course of this like seminal year. So for me, like dude,
sometimes I think a playworld that's like historical fiction, like
(11:31):
like and and and and the reason it's perfect for
somebody like you is because your recognition of it, I think,
is going to be something that you're going to really
enjoy as somebody who is there. Yeah, and and I
think I think the reason that people who you know,
who have really just loved it who aren't of that
era is because they they they look, they just hear
(11:55):
about this era when some of these things were so different,
when there wasn't the same degree of cynicism, when there
was just you know, my children and my two daughters
constantly say like, I would have given anything to have
had your childhood.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
My kids say that all the time. They sometimes they'll
even say it in anger, you know, yeah, yeah, which
I found interesting because they have so many advancements and whatnot.
They think of the I think Stranger Things played a
big role in it because they just think of the
eighties as this glorious time where I was off and
(12:30):
they're not wrong. Like you said, I was gone for
the day and mom and dad had no GPS on me.
There was there was an extraordinary freedom. But they act
like there were no madmen in the world, you know,
and nothing, you know, there was nothing to be afraid of,
and it's like that's not necessarily true either. Let me
ask you, I.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Really got but I'm really glad you mentioned Stranger Things though,
because I want to say something like one of the
things that's funny to me, I remember, you know, because
obviously I haven't worked on this book for a long time.
I remember watching Stranger Things when it came out, and
you know, I loved some of the markers as it
were of the eighties, like even though I grew up
(13:10):
in New York City, like I was one of those
kids who was on my bike all the time. But
you know, one of the things that I yeah, but
one of the things that Stranger Things made literal, which
was like the the monstrousness, the creatureliness of the world,
(13:31):
the the monstrous danger of the world. When literally, I
mean like in Stranger Things, there are literal monsters. There
are gorgans, et cetera, et cetera, and mind flares, you know.
In in Griffin's world, the monsters are our people.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, and Griffin is very holden too. Was that a choice?
It's very holden.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Well, the you know, it's funny, you know people some
people talk about the book having the sort of vapors
of Holding Callfield like I. You know, the funny thing
was when I was around thirteen years old and it
came time to read Catcher in the Rye in school,
you know, the you know, so many kids around me
(14:19):
who are a little bit older were like, oh my god,
you're gonna read Catcher in the Rye. It's going to
change your life, blah blah blah. And when I first
read Catcher in the Rye, I was actually very annoyed
by Holding Callfield.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yes, so you and I should obviously hang out, because
that dude annoyed the hell out of me when I
was fourteen. I found him pretentious and a downer and
I that's just not who I was at fourteen. I've
never heard anyone else I call that sentiment. That's wild, right, And.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
That's the thing. Neither was I. And so I think
that one of the things is that it's not that
I uh, I think that I think that I think
that when people are talking, when when people talk about
the Catcher in the Rye aspect, I think that I
think that one of because I've read Catcher in the
Rye at least four times, and I appreciate Catcher in
(15:08):
the Rye, but I appreciate Catcher in the Rye more
from almost like a technical standpoint and a storytelling standpoint.
But I was not. I was not somebody who alied
to myself with holding Cawfield. I was not, you know,
there was you know, my initial reaction to him, which
he was kind of a He's kind of a whiner
(15:28):
and a Debbie downer and a depressive and that's not
what Griffin. That's not what Griffin is. But I do
think that what, you know, I think that that what
Salinger touched on was a certain kind of sense of
dislocation that kids feel, and a sense of adults being
(15:48):
strange and impossible to communicate with or difficult to communicate with. Uh.
You know, Griffin doesn't have that across the board in Playworld.
He he has a he has a very interesting and
a times fraught relationship with the family psychologist. He has
a very I think intimate and at times spraught relationship
(16:11):
with this older woman. Uh he hash. Okay, you know good,
but but I mean a little.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Benja, a little Benjamin Braddick, a dash of Benjamin Braddock
now too. I have to read this book, Adam. This,
this has to happen.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, oh yeah, no, I think you.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I have to ask it. So let me So I
wanted to say this to you. And again we're im
with Adam Ross. So the new book is Playworld. It's
been out since January. You might remember him from his
twenty ten novel Mister Peanut, which is actually my daughter's
nickname for me. This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
But it's because I look. According to her, I look
like mister Peanut. My head is shaped like. Yeah, you
(16:52):
have the two daughters, so you know where of I speak.
You do take your time between books, it would appear.
But it's so funny. I had no idea of the
year you were zeroed in on and I reference that
year often on my radio show because it was such
a pivotal year. You know, we had a current events class.
(17:12):
We were watching the Iran hostage crisis every day. It
was a very anxious year in a lot of ways
do and I wasn't an anxious kid. And I remember
the day that they were freed, and it was the
day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in and when it
got announced in school, and I remember being in the
playground and looking up at the sky and feeling like
something had been lifted. And I don't know if you
(17:34):
touch upon all that and here, and I wonder if
you ron.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Hostage crisis is constantly alluded to in Playworld, and there's
actually a chapter, the last chapter of part one is
called Hostages.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well, that's fair, And I would imagine the other huge
thing about nineteen eighty one for me and for guys
like us, I would say, I got a little something
called MTV debut.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, that's a big part of the rise of MTV
has an extraordinary impact on Griffin's life. At the end,
at the end of at the end of the.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Novel, would you say that it did on yours too?
Is that why you.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
There's a there's a chapter. There's a chapter in Playworld
called Video Killed the Radio Star. So I mean so
but but yeah, so, I mean, like one of the
one of the major events in Griffin's life. Griffin's father
is a voiceover guy. Wow, he's like a Broadway actor,
a voiceover guy. And when MTV comes into being, it's
(18:36):
like a gold rush for his father. I mean, I
mean because because suddenly there's a whole new form of media,
as it were, and again like disruptive, transformative media like that.
You know, it's one of the ways in which Playworld
signals some of the media disruptions that are coming down
the pipe. And it's disruptive in the broadest sense of
(18:56):
the word for Griffin's life, and that it's going to
change his life. You're not going to have everything to
talk about you talk about that year. We're going to
have everything to talk about, from the assassination of John
Lennon to the assassination intent of Truth Reagan.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
That was a huge part of that year too. I
mean my classroom that year, we didn't have music. My
teacher wore a black he was in mourning all year.
Mister Fusco, he put a black Armband in honor of
John Lennon. He wrote on the chalkboard John Lennon, you
know the year he was born to the year he died.
Whoever had to wash down the chalkboard was instructed not
to touch that. That was to stay up all year.
(19:32):
And we had no music class. It was Beatles. We
just learned about the Beatles. It was one of the
best classes I've ever had. You know, So that this
book just sounds intended for.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Me hearing from you that word of mouth is and
it's true very much alive is what you hope for.
That's the future of the book. It's the future of
the book, I think is people who were interested in
the eighties who might be younger and want to know
what that was like as a child and talking about it.
And it's absolutely to me. I mean, I feel like
(20:05):
it is a gen X Bible, and so it is
a book for a full set of decades beyond Reddy
ston Ellis's Less Than Zero or j mcinerne by That
Big City or you know, Tamma Janowitz. I mean like
it's a book that really zeros in on that era.
It really is for people like you to share.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I think you're gonna love it. I can't wait for you.
I will gladly come back on the show to talk
about it. And well, we can talk about specific moments,
because I think your experience of the assassination of John
Lennon's very different from mine. Really just like your your
well well, I mean just in terms of in the
best possible way. I mean, like where were you when?
How did you learn about it? What was the aftermath?
(20:47):
I mean, it's the story you're telling about your teacher
is fascinating, just like where were you when you know
Reagan got shot?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
What year was that? Again?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Reagan got shot? And I believe March of nineteen eighty
eighty one started market.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I mean, you really did pick a year that was
even more chock full. And I mean, and when I
say that, I refer to so often on my show,
but I wouldn't have put the Reagan assassination attempt in there.
I would have thought that was a little bit later.
There's lots to talk about. I have to read the book,
and there's going to be a part two to this conversation.
I will let Jordans know that know that today there
(21:23):
they're not We'll get you on next week again. I
can't wait, Adam Ross, this is great stuff. I think
this happened for a reason, and I appreciate you being
patient with me.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
No, no, probably, I can't wait. I can't wait to
come back on.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
All right, mommy, take care
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