Editorial note: The Playground is an extreme horror novel meant to cause shock and discomfort. The narrative thrust is young children in a death game. The cover is not included because of graphic content.
Content warning: child abuse, violence against children, violence against women, violence against animals, gore, graphic sexual content, foul language, homophobia, sexism, blood, gore, grieving, pedophilia, nazis
One of my special interests is the history of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The novel is largely a project of grief, as Dahl wrote the novel after losing his young daughter. His original vision for the story featured 10 children, nine of which would meet gruesome fates inside the factory. This included quite a bit of pulverizing described in far more detail than any fate left in the final publication of the book would suggest. If you’ve encountered the now viral clips of poor Veruca’s fate in the Broadway musical adaptation, you have a good idea of the original tone and style of the novel.
Aron Beauregard’s new horror novel The Playground is the extreme horror version of the premise. Eight children and their families are invited to test out a new, state of the art playground for an eccentric millionaire’s charity. She will use the results of her test to determine which neighborhood the final playground will actually be installed in. What follows is an elaborate series of deadly playground traps designed to end the lives of any children unfortunate enough to encounter them.
The antagonist is Geraldine Borden. She is, without doubt, one of the most loathsome monsters I’ve encountered in a lifetime of exploring horror. The elderly millionaire is obsessed with what she does not have. She could not have her own child and she views her adopted son as a total failure, so she chooses to murder others’ children. If she doesn’t have a child, no one should have one. She has no one to love her, so she forces the people in her life to meet her insatiable sexual appetite. No other person can do what she wants, so she does it herself with whatever she wants in her massive mansion. No man ever took interest in her, so no man or boy is worthy of even being considered an heir to her fortune. The list goes on.
Her animosity towards unworthy parents has twisted in her mind to associate torture and death with pleasure. The idea of a child being deprived of a future on her playground thrills her more than anything else. The idea of any child surviving is unlikely, but she does have a soft spot and a desire for a young girl to mold in her image. Borden is a remorseless villain in the same vein as Quentin P in Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates or Charlie Manx in N0S4A2 by Joe Hill; awful company, indeed.
Her unwilling accomplice in her scheme is her adopted son Rock Stanley. He was taken in as a child and almost immediately dismissed as a total failure at life. He was abused in truly horrific ways, left as a broken shell of a man hiding a child never allowed to grow up. Rock is seen as such an embarrassment that Geraldine announces him as her butler, not her son.
Rock is tasked with finding the perfect families to bring into the test. He goes to playgrounds in his best suit, approaches desperate parents, and offers them a chance to earn a few thousand dollars in exchange for their children testing out the playground. He hates doing it, but his choice is bring in new families and face criticism or refuse and face further abuse.
The families selected for the largest test ever represent different extremes in parenting.
First up is Caroline Clark and her young son Donnie. He’s not allowed any freedom. She keeps him tethered to a leather leash and harness even when on the swings. The lead is so short that the child can and will fall over from being pulled too long or too hard. Clark is an abusive parent, just like Geraldine, only without the means to really cover up her crimes against her child.
Next up are Tom and Molly Grimley. They are the doting parents who try to do the right thing without really disciplining their children. Isaac, their son, is a constant target of bullying from his siblings and peers. He has thick glasses and reads like a real indoor kid; I can relate. His sisters Sam and Sadie are inseparable, with Sam doing whatever her younger sister wants. This includes picking on Isaac and getting whatever they want from their parents. Tom and Molly are struggling after Tom lost his job, so the chance to give their beloved children a special day out and earn some money is too good to pass up.
Last up are Greg and Lacey Matthews. They are the exploitative, live through your children’s success kind of parents. Bobby is the oldest and already viewed as a lost cause by his sports-obsessed parents. He’s overweight and interested in skateboarding, not a real sport like baseball or football. Kip is the star child with all the promise in the world. Greg will make him an MLB star whether he wants it or not. CJ is the youngest, and his parents still haven’t figured out if he can be exploited yet.
Tanya is the only daughter in the Matthews family. She’s expected to be just like her mother. Lacey wants her to be a cheerleader so she can learn how to be attractive to boys and grow up to be a perfect wife and mother like her. That’s not what Tanya wants. She wants to swim competitively, but the idea of a girl being a sports star is unthinkable in this family.
Any child achieving their own dreams is unthinkable in the Matthews family. You’re either with the parents or against them, and you really don’t want to be against them.
These extremes in parenting styles already create volatile conflicts before the children even enter the playground. Geraldine’s ghastly machinations take care of the rest. These children will be hurt physically, mentally, and emotionally, and their parents will be forced to watch every last drop of blood fall.
The Playground is undoubtedly a work of extreme horror. While the fates of the children are awful, they are not described in nearly as much detail as what happens to the adults in the story. It’s the right balance to tell this story without pushing the reader too hard. The most disturbing scenes and unsettling details are saved for Geraldine’s desires, not her violent tendencies, and they really push you to the limits.
Aron Beauregard’s storytelling is accompanied by original illustrations by Anton Rosovsky. Key moments of the story are presented in a distinctive, inky, black and white style. These are not for the faint of heart. The illustrations make the end of these characters unavoidable and concrete. It’s one thing to imagine the violence, toning it down to match what you can tolerate in specific scenes; it’s quite another to be confronted with the moment of destruction etched on the page. There’s a finality to these illustrations that twists the knife just a bit further.
If you want to experience one of the most shocking and original deadly game narratives to come around in years, give The Playground a try. The reach of Geraldine’s twisted mind is hard to shake off in the best ways possible for a horror fan.
The Playground is available in paperbook, eBook, and audiobook formats.
