Excerpt from Playground by Richard Powers, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Don't get me wrong: If being rich meant having feckless parents, I accepted that. I loved being rich. The consolation prizes were many and outstanding. But I hated my father for betraying my mother, and I hated my mother for betraying me. I wasn't old enough yet to know how to pretend that everything would be fine. The secret seemed to be to find some other place to live.

I found that place under Lake Michigan. When my mind raced and the future rushed at me with knives, the only thing that helped was looking out from the castle and seeing myself walking across the bottom of the lake.

All dramas sounded muffled, under the water. I knew this from summers on the Lee Street and Lighthouse Beaches. All friends and foes looked fluid and subdued, crawling through liquid resistance with a languid blue-green cast. On the floor of the lake, there were no people. I couldn't imagine a better place to live.

Excerpted from Playground by Richard Powers. Copyright © 2024 by Richard Powers. Excerpted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.