Melanie Abrams's, Playing, Reviewed

From Publishers Weekly

Abrams's debut novel is a revealing look inside the mind of a woman who enjoys being beaten, shamed and dominated by her lover. While pursuing her studies, 27-year-old anthropology graduate student Josie works as a nanny for a single mother with a special-needs son and a baby girl. While Josie may at first seem like a wholesome young woman, it isn't long before she's sneaking out in the middle of the night to rendezvous with her older Indian doctor lover, Devesh, who recognizes her sadomasochistic desires. With great excitement, she allows herself to be bound and whipped, fulfilling her desire to play. As Josie falls in love with Devesh, their bedroom escapades become increasingly brutal, and she struggles to make sense of her need for sexual violence as she explores her relationship with her mother and confronts her guilt about the death of her infant brother, who died under murky circumstances when she was a little girl. The narrative moves fast, and the stark swirl of sex, violence and near-madness will please readers with a dark bent. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Playing is a smart [and] erotic debut. Melanie Abrams's prose is as sharp as the tangled desires she portrays in this compelling exploration of the connections between sex, death, pain, and atonement." -- Mark Lindquist, author of The Kind of Methlehem

"A daring debut." -- Martha Southgate, author of The Fall of Rome and Third Girl from the Left

"A young woman, taking a job as an au pair, at the same time embarks on an affair that allows her to act out her deepest and most shaming sexual fantasies. The tension between these two poles of her life sends her spiraling into a confrontation with a painful past and with herself. Part fable, part romance, this disturbing, tender, sometimes terrifying first novel announces, emphatically, the arrival of a very gifted new writer." -- Robert Haas, author of Time and Materials 

"In her arresting debut novel, Playing, Melanie Abrams is disturbingly expert at exhibiting how erotic obsession makes a courtship--between Devesh and Josie--a dangerous game indeed. This novel is a breathless read, whose rewards are both unpredictable and unforgettable. A stunning writer." -- Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist and Devotion

"Playmates who don't play nice sometimes know the best games, and the best fun, the kind that engages body, spirit, and mind, might not leave us laughing. Melanie Abrams's fictional playground is a troubled psyche, and the game, a darkly erotic, absorbing, and profoundly serious free-fall into memory that gives full expression to a character's savaged spirit." -- Ann Cummins, author of Red Ant House and Yellowcake

See all Editorial Reviews