Play Things

ISBN-13: 9781939140678 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 124 str.

Peter Prince

Opis

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award

"An agreeably readable first novel . . . light-hearted throughout, and altogether the book is a promising beginning to Mr Princes career as a novelist." - J. G. Farrell, The Listener

"Mr Prince is absolutely first class. His short book grips as a story . . . Its exciting, relevant, a whole-sale gift for the top-notch department." - Oswell Blakeston, Books and Bookmen

"[A] newcomer who looks worth watching . . . Prince contrives to make [his] hero entirely sympathetic . . . he creates an air of hope and human potential, and you feel a surge of sheer affection for this not-so-null figure." - The Guardian

The 27-year-old hero of Play Things recently graduated and landed a job at a top architectural firm, but, he says, "I got tired." Now hes dropped out, grown his hair out long and taken a job as a playleader at an adventure playground. But he quickly finds that the job isnt quite what hed expected. The kids are violent thugs, even criminals, and the playground is a haven for thieves, perverts, and drug dealers. As the ineffectual playleader finds himself mixed up rather comically in their bizarre and dangerous schemes, it starts to look as though the summer will prove to be less about finding himself, and more about finding a way to survive. . . .

Compellingly readable, very funny, and unexpectedly moving, Peter Princes critically acclaimed first novel, Play Things (1972), won the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award. This edition, the first in nearly forty years, includes a new foreword by the author.