Playground: A Novel

“And on that island, the two of them married and raised a family as well as they could, away from the growing sadness of the real world.”

The beginning of the novel frames Makatea as an unreal place. The novel later reveals this depiction of the island as an AI device’s creation, but presents the unreality of life on the island as a fundamental aspect of Makatea. The island is a world apart, an unreal place where the dead return to life. Rafi and Ina couldn’t make a life for themselves in the real world, but they can on Makatea, though the story only hints at the revelation of Makatea’s true artificiality until the novel’s end.

“A quarter of the world suffers from insomnia.”

Makatea is a dreamlike place, but it isn’t immune to the problems of the outside world. Even in the dreamlike world of Makatea, people can’t sleep. Given the small population, the 20 people who experience insomnia aren’t just a statistic—they can be visited, known, and understood. The heightened reality of the dreamlike island makes even statistics more personal and more intense, in contrast to the outside world, where anonymous individuals experience insomnia in painful silence.

“I loved the gawky explorer more than I loved my own mother, in an inchoate way I couldn’t understand. True, deep, embracing first love.”

Evelyne Beaulieu is Todd’s first love, even if she doesn’t know it. He falls in love with her through her book, and she becomes an important part of his early life.