Playworld

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual harassment and child sexual abuse.

Griffin Hurt is the main character and first-person narrator of the novel. While Griffin is 14 and 15 years old throughout Playworld, he is narrating the novel from his adult perspective. At times, this stance affects a retrospective narrative tone, as Griffin looks back at the events of his freshman and sophomore years of high school and tries to make sense of his coming-of-age experiences.

Griffin is an earnest, introspective, and talented character. He lives in New York, New York, with his father Shel Hurt, mother Lily Hurt, and younger brother Oren Hurt. He starts working as a child actor when he is in the second grade, an opportunity brought about by a chance appearance on Candid Camera. From this show, Griffin gets other acting roles that delight his father in particular. (Shel is an actor and singer and wants Griffin to pursue the same artform. He even goes so far as to make Griffin pay for his private school tuition using his acting salary.) Despite his talent for acting, Griffin has little interest in making a life of the vocation.