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The Hindu
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Review of Playworld by Adam Ross
The very opening of Adam Ross's novel Playworld seduces you fatefully: 'In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn't seem strange at the time.' Just as biting is the mother's response that comes after 20 years: 'Two decades later, when I finally told my mother — we were on Long Island, taking a walk on the beach — she stopped, stunned, and said, 'But she was such an ugly woman.'' The narrator is unruffled: 'The remark wasn't as petty as it sounds. If I was aware of it then, it neither repulsed me not affected my feelings for Naomi. It was just a thing that I took for granted, like the color of her hair.' But the body that is laid bare and put to auction through the novel is not that of Naomi, but of the actor as a figure of precarity. It is the male actor, boy to man, who vends his ware, voice or smile or role, to get bread, school, and sex. That sounds more brutally vulgar than the complex narratives that make up this 500-page novel, but somewhere deep down, this is its truth. Deceit and shame The gossip, manners and role-play from the world of performance are what get Griffin, the boy-narrator, the erotic attention of his older lover for the first time when they are alone in a room in a party. As she doubles over in laughter at his anecdotes from theatre, he renews her amusement by mimicking her: 'She had the classic up-Island accent, one I could mimic on command: 'A vawhdville act, this kid is,' I said, imitating her, 'a regular prawdigy'.' Griffin is fated to perform — for attention and a living — as that is his family inheritance and the life to which his boyhood is shackled. While he gets Naomi's interest, his father Shel revels in the attention of her rich husband, Sam. As Sam takes out Shel and his two sons, Griffin and Oren, for a spin in his oyster-gray Bentley, Shel fiddles with the car radio to bring it to the station that belts out a beer commercial in his voice. Sam is delighted to hear Shel's voice, but Shel shrugs and acts cool, secretly delighted by the rich man's appreciation. But nothing his hidden from his sons, who are mortified by the games played by their father. The vulnerability of the actor, at once comic and tragic, animates this novel and hits me hard because of dark reasons of my own. Griffin's fate threatens to invoke my own childhood — my mother, who died young, was a theatre actress in a society that was suspicious of women who performed. But unlike Griffin in Broadway-loving New York, my line between art and life was both shape-shifting and dangerous in Calcutta, and the child-memory of the reality on and off-stage drove me to write my second novel, The Firebird (2015), from the wings and the greenrooms of theatre. Damning reality Griffin's vulnerability, shared with the farcical vulnerability of his father, binds me in primitive glue. But the actor's performance makes a gallery of society at large, and Playworld never lets us forget that. Much later in the novel, when Griffin is out for dinner with a girl he wants to date, along with her father, Dr. West, a pompous English teacher, and his much younger girlfriend, he suffers through West's lecture on Shakespeare's As You Like It, and on his abject failure to get 'even a rudimentary grasp of the play's rhetorical architecture'. Is that lack of 'understanding' a damning reality for the actor, or is it his great redemption? That it leaves this question unanswered is the generous enigma of Ross's beautiful novel. By performing his role, in his innocence of any critical understanding of the play, Griffin embodies the visceral internalisation of character that shapes the actor. But it also keeps the figure of the actor — including Griffin who pays for school with his theatrical income, and his father whose career is forever defined by what he failed to become — in the margins of a ruthlessly oligarchic society where rich people like Sam Shah have the last laugh. Their triumphal moment is the delight they take in the anti-labour politics and tax cuts for the wealthy by an incumbent Republican government, which feels eerily resonant today. The reviewer is the author of five novels, most recently, 'The Remains of the Body' (2024). Playworld Adam Ross Knopf ₹944 (ebook)
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
McDowell, Mercer included in federal disaster declaration
princeton — Disaster victims of the Feb. 15 storm which brought record flooding across four southern West Virginia counties can now start applying to FEMA for federal aid. Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced Wednesday evening that President Donald Trump had accepted his request for Individual Assistance in McDowell, Mercer, Mingo and Wyoming counties. Another nine counties in the request — Raleigh, Greenbrier, Summers, Wayne, Boone, Cabell, Kanawha, Lincoln and Logan – still remain under consideration by FEMA. The Individual Assistance (IA) program provides funds to individuals facing major damage to their homes or property. This declaration also provides the opportunity for all West Virginia counties to participate in the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which can provide resources to alleviate or reduce future flooding and help public service districts with wastewater treatment and other long-term hazard reduction projects. 'I'm grateful to President Trump and Secretary Noem for stepping up to support West Virginians in need,' Morrisey said when he announced the declaration. 'Thank you as well to Senators Capito and Justice, and to Representatives Miller and Moore, for their efforts. The Major Disaster Declaration will supplement the work being completed on the ground and provide relief to recovering communities in southern West Virginia.' FEMA disaster relief centers have not been established yet, but flood victims in McDowell, Mercer, Mingo and Wyoming counties can start applying for FEMA Individual Assistance. Applications can be made by calling FEMA at 800-621-FEMA (3362). Applicants can also use the TTY number, 800-462-7585, which is for special communications equipment used by people who cannot use regular telephones due to hearing loss or other difficulties. FEMA applications can be made online at or by downloading the FEMA app on a cellphone. Morrisey's request for federal Public Assistance was still being reviewed Thursday by FEMA. Keith Gunnoe, director of the Mercer County Office of Emergency Management said that while Individual Assistance is for people with damage to their homes or property, Public Assistance is for addressing infrastructure losses such as damaged public roads or water systems. FEMA announced that federal disaster assistance is available in West Virginia to supplement recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, flooding, landslides and mudslides beginning on Feb. 15, and continuing. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster. Mark O'Hanlon has been named the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas. Additional designations may be made at a later date if warranted by the results of further damage assessments. In a joint statement, U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito. and Jim Justice, as well as U.S. Reps. Carol Miller, and Riley Moore, said they applauded the president's approval for Individual Assistance in the four counties. 'We are grateful for the efforts and service of Governor Morrisey, local leaders, neighbors, first responders, and the West Virginia National Guardsmen who sprang into action when these storms struck. The Trump administration's approval of our state's request for federal disaster aid is welcome news for communities in McDowell, Mercer, Mingo and Wyoming counties as they work to recover and rebuild following these devastating storms, and we are glad that help will soon be on the way to southern West Virginia,' the lawmakers said in their joint statement. While Mercer County doesn't have a disaster recovery center yet, FEMA will announce a location and its hours when arrangements are complete, Gunnoe said. An exact date for opening a center had not been set Thursday. Meanwhile, counties are still working to help flood victims recover. In Mercer County, a dedicated phone line has been set up at the Mercer County 911 Center for reporting needs or requests for flooding resources from the Mercer County Office of Emergency Management. Callers will hear a prerecorded message asking them to leave a message including their name and telephone number. The messages are then forwarded to Keith Gunnoe at the Office of Emergency Services. The dedicated number is 304-487-2923. In McDowell County, there is a helpline at 1-888-929-4966. Callers can use Option 1 to request help with non-life-threatening needs or Option 2 if they want to volunteer or make a donation. Anyone wishing to have their well water tested that was affected by the flood, should contact the McDowell County WV Health Department at 304-448-2174. The McDowell County Office of Emergency Services is accepting donations to help replace private bridges that were lost or damaged during the flood. Materials such as drainage pipe, bridge supports, beams and anything that can be used in this process are being accepted. All donations of bridge material should be dropped off at the former Kimball Walmart office. Donors are asked to call ahead at the 1-888-929-4966 helpline before dropping off donations. In addition, anyone with equipment or those wishing to help in the replacement of these bridges is welcome. Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@
