Playground: A Novel

Content Warning: This section refers to intimate partner violence.

Playground opens with a retelling of the French Polynesian myth of creation in which the god Ta’aroa makes himself and then the world. Ta’aroa is “an artist” and, during the process of creation, summons other artists, who in turn bring the other gods. Ta’aroa watches humans venture out into the world.

Todd Keane, an American billionaire who made his fortune in the tech industry, narrates the story of his life to an AI device. The book distinguishes his narration by using italics. Todd was recently diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. The condition is incurable, and he shares his memories with the AI device before he loses them. First, he describes walking home after watching a student production of The Tempest with his friend Rafi Young and Rafi’s girlfriend, Ina Aroita. Walking across campus, Ina (a woman from the Pacific Islands) saw snow for the first time.

Years later, Ina lives on the island of Makatea in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. She has lived on the island for four years with Rafi and their two children, “her crab boy Afa and her timid dancer Hariti” (5).