Excerpt from Playworld by Adam Ross, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Where'd you get it?" my father asked.

"On the Cape," Sam said.

"It must've been expensive."

"It was sitting, uncovered, in the owner's driveway, turning into a hunk of rust."

"A bargain, then," my father observed.

Sam leaned toward him while keeping his eyes on the road. He low­ered his voice conspiratorially. "The restoration was what really cost me."

We'd made our way out of the residential part of Great Neck and onto a four-lane road. Freer now, Sam stepped on it again, and the car accelerated effortlessly.

My father pointed to the speedometer. "Ever gotten it up to two hun­dred?" he asked.

Oren, shielding his eyes, shook his head miserably. "Those are kilometers."

Dad, who liked to hurry past mistakes, shot him a look. "Still," he said to Oren, and then to Sam, "it's close."

Over Sam's shoulder, Oren said, "So it tops out at what, Mr. Shah? One-twenty?"

"Very good," Sam replied. "And no," he told Dad.

"It's a V-8," Oren continued, amazing me. "The S1 was a straight six."

"I see you know your automobiles," Sam said.

Oren shrugged and then sank back into his seat, crossing his arms, wearing a pained expression as he watched the darkened trees whip by. "I know a little," he said.

I could tell Dad was uncomfortable in the presence of Sam's material success, which baffled me. He sang on Broadway, and his voice was all over TV. Give, he said, to the United Negro College Fund. Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He had nothing to prove to me.

"What do you think of American cars?" Dad asked Sam. We'd just bought my grandfather's Buick LeSabre for a dollar—an amount Grandpa had demanded to make the transaction, in his words, official.

"Not much," Sam said.

"Elliott certainly loves his Cadillac," my father observed.

Once again Sam leaned toward my father. "Even Dr. Barr has lapses in judgment."

While Oren and I were recovering from this heresy, my father's voice came on the radio—his commercial for Schlitz. It was suddenly obvious to me why he'd turned it on in the first place. Oren was so mortified he hid his face behind Sam's seat, while I, being the more dutiful son, exclaimed, "Dad, it's you!"

Sam raised the volume.

You only go around once in life, said my father, so you have to grab all the gusto you can!

Sam laughed, delighted. Dad shrugged like it was nothing. You drive a Bentley, he seemed to be saying. I am the voice of malt liquor.

A moment later, Sam asked, "How do they pay you for that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it a one-time thing?" Sam said. "You do the commercial, get a check, and you're done?"

"Not exactly," my father said. He sat up straight, then pinched his thumb and index finger together as if to make a fine point. "They also pay you for a thirteen-week cycle. After that, if they want to renew the commercial, they pay you again." He sat back and crossed his arms, satisfied.

Sam appeared to do a quick calculation. "So during that period, they could play the ad a million times and you wouldn't see an extra cent?"

My father opened his mouth and then closed it. "In theory, yes."

Sam smiled, blinking. "Someone's union needs to renegotiate."

Dad had had it with his unions. They'd been on strike since late July, the walkout over cable TV and videocassette revenue, which made me happy—finally, I wasn't on set shooting my show over the summer. My father hated being out of work, but he took Sam's observation as a more personal affront: he suddenly also felt underappreciated. Now it was he who faced the window to watch the world unspool past him.

"I'll talk to them," he replied, as if his SAG and AFTRA reps were just waiting for his call. He was distracted now, but when we took a sharp curve and Sam accelerated through its apex, he managed to step back into character. "The handling is just remarkable."

Excerpted from Playworld by Adam Ross. Copyright © 2025 by Adam Ross. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.