We Play Ourselves

A Novel

By: Jen Silverman

Narrated by: Renata Friedman

After a humiliating scandal, a young writer flees to the West Coast, where she is drawn into the morally ambiguous orbit of a charismatic filmmaker and the teenage girls who are her next subjects.

FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF BUZZFEED’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “A blistering story about the costs of creating art.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

Not too long ago, Cass was a promising young playwright in New York, hailed as “a fierce new voice” and “queer, feminist, and ready to spill the tea.” But at the height of all this attention, Cass finds herself at the center of a searing public shaming, and flees to Los Angeles to escape—and reinvent herself. There she meets her next-door neighbor Caroline, a magnetic filmmaker on the rise, as well as the pack of teenage girls who hang around her house. They are the subjects of Caroline’s next semidocumentary movie, which follows the girls’ clandestine activity: a Fight Club inspired by the violent classic.

As Cass is drawn into the film’s orbit, she is awed by Caroline’s ambition and confidence. But over time, she becomes troubled by how deeply Caroline is manipulating the teens in the name of art—especially as the consequences become increasingly disturbing. With her past proving hard to shake and her future one she’s no longer sure she wants, Cass is forced to reckon with her own ambitions and confront what she has come to believe about the steep price of success.

©2021 Jen Silverman (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“We Play Ourselves offers a delightful, satirical glimpse into the entertainment industry and the price of fame. ... Silverman balances wit with earnestness, the laugh-out-loud moments highlighting the absurdity of writing - whether plays, films or poetry, the genre she skewers most adroitly in a pitch-perfect parody of an overhyped ingénue. Cass’s desperation for a new, simpler life is universal. As she falls again and again, the reader believes she has the heart to pick herself back up.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“We Play Ourselves is not only a story about how all-consuming artistic ambition can be - but also a poignant portrait of how much an artist can learn to love her work.” (Ploughshares)

“[A] beautifully realized novel about choice, ambition, and revelation. ... This memorable novel deserves a standing ovation.” (Booklist, starred review)

Medicine

We play ourselves is medicine for anyone with the audacity to call themselves an artist.

Weird, Self-aware, funny, and hopeful

The story was unexpected without relying on twists to be interesting. All the characters feel like fully realized people, and the narrative maintains a sympathetic but humorously ironic perspective on many bulwarks of progressive belief that allows it to explore some heavy topics while avoiding self righteousness or gloom. I enjoyed the entire book and finished it more quickly than I wanted to.

Cool, interesting debut

A great read that got my mind moving into places it hadn’t before. A little slow near the center but I expect that for lit fic. I was concerned she wouldn’t wrap up the story well since there’s a bit of a “hard break” after the 75% mark, but everything ended up coming together rather magnificently. I especially loved the parts with Tara-Jean Slater! I found myself saying that name out loud even after I finished listening for the day. It’s so euphonic.

So strange. And long.

I kept waiting for this to get good. Silverman is a skilled writer and a keen observer but this book is SO self indulgent and meandering and, frankly, exhausting and unsatisfying. There are so many loose ends that, if I cared enough about the characters, I’d be supremely frustrated by. Happily, I don’t.

Loved it

I didn't start listening to audiobooks until the pandemic, and this is maybe my 40th? I'd say it's easily in my top 3 favorites so far. Really exceptional listen--super meta. The primary character, Cass (a playwright), tells her story from a first person perspective, so it doesn't feel like an outside narrator, more like Cass is inhabiting the characters? LIke you're listening to her perform her story as a solo play, or like a friend telling you a crazy yarn, playing all these bizarre characters.

The story is sweetly elliptical with some surprising sharpness and peculiar twists. Cass flees New York after a professional ruckus and finds herself in a bizarre L.A. dreamscape, complete with a teen girl fight club. Eventually she finds her way home.

Yummy story, exceptional performance. I know this writer's work from theater and was genuinely delighted to encounter this novel. :)

Very good

A story about finding yourself after perceived failures. Finding the will to step forward again and again in new and unimaginable ways. So Beautiful.

EXCELLENT

Fantastically lovely and weird. Just kept getting stranger and darker and more honest. This audiobook felt like a mille-feuille. I kept changing my mind about what it was: humor/snark/satire/confection/confession/fairy tale?

Superb narration and storytelling. Would recommend listening to instead of reading this--it felt particularly apt considering the story (you'll see). Beautiful stuff.

Recommended!

Awesome. Heard this narrator do Detransition Baby and wanted to keep listening. This is a different kind of book but both were terrific. Didn''t know this author but will look for more things from her. An entertaining distraction from life. Love this narrator.

Brilliant Satire

Dark feminist satire in the vein of Mona Awad's Bunny, but without the batsh*t supernatural horror element. We Play Ourselves questions how success is defined for young women in an age where people are famous for simply being famous, and where fame is measured by the quantified approval of others. How do these metrics affect art, and those who create it?

Narrator has to do a LOT of accent work for this book, and while some of it is a bit... cringe, it isn't bad enough to be distracting. While not every accent and voice the narrator does is necessarily likable, I do think they should be commended for the sheer number of different voices they managed to portray.

Relatable

A great example of the universality of specificity. On the surface, I don't have much in common with the protagonist, and for that reason I am able to see clearly through her. This is a balm for today's world of endless ambition. Success and the artistic process just don't talk to each other very well You can't create and be worried about success. I love this book.