Let's Go Play at the Adams



"A novel of lingering horror."

That describes it aptly. Barbara, a 20-year-old babysitter to a couple of preteens, wakes up to find herself tightly tied to a bed and gagged. The kids are in charge now, and with a couple of teenagers from the neighborhood visiting, they have no intent of letting Barbara loose. Thus begins Barbara's never-ending days and nights of torment.

The kids make sure she is literally always restrained in some way. One hand free to eat, that's it. Just enough free to use the bathroom, and that's it. She is always retied, often in different ways for the kids' own amusement. Things go downhill, though, when the teens of the group decide to do other things to her for their own amusement. Yes, those kinds of other things...

The book finally ends with...

Yes, this is a real novel. Some reviews on Amazon.com are from people who say that they've thrown the book away in disgust or even destroyed it after having read it, and one person admitted to burning it! Another reader praised the book for its realistic portrayal of helplessness, and showing how one's thoughts would actually wander and what they'd wander to, what one would think and feel, when they're tied up and perpetually helpless. There's a tremendous amount of description in this story, and we get inside the heads of not only Barbara, but each of her captors, each of whom is getting something different out of the situation, each of whom has a different view of it, and all of whom, over time, begin to care less and less about Barbara.

The author has never written another novel again (He died shortly after publishing this one). There's some speculation as to whether or not this is essentially one massive Author Appeal-fest, but most will tell you, the book is very well-written, and definitely gets under your skin. One review here attests to that.

The book attracted the attention of TV editor, Barry Schneebeli, who wrote a sequel called Game's End. Due to copyright laws, it was never actually published, but is available online at his website, and you can find a review here). It begins with, and explores the resulting media frenzy and criminal trials, as well as Barbara's physical and emotional recovery from her ordeal. Had Schneebeli's project gone to press, it might have brought the original book out of obscurity.

This book contains examples of:

 * The Atoner -
 * Author Appeal - Some people speculate that Johnson was a sadist and the book is nothing more than an exercise in self-indulgence. Others say this isn't the case.
 * Bondage Is Bad
 * Bound and Gagged - Galore. From beginning to end. Many, many different ways.
 * Children Are Innocent: Averted.
 * Creepy Child - Paul
 * Deconstruction - Pretty much does this to the oft-used comedic plot device of the babysitter being tied up by her charges (I Love Lucy for example). When Barabara is first tied up, it seems like the novel will go in a light-hearted direction. She's more surprised and annoyed, than concerned. That changes in the second or third chapter.
 * Distressed Damsel
 * Dying as Yourself - in Game's End. Right before
 * Earn Your Happy Ending -
 * Fatal Flaw:
 * Foot Focus - One of the boys has a foot fetish, and obsesses over Barbara's feet. The youngest girl in the group (she's 10) later tells Barbara that this boy tied her up before and even tied her big toes together.
 * Fix Fic - At least two professional works, the above mentioned Game's End by Barry Schneebeli, and a subplot in the novel The Abyss by Steve Vance, were born out each writer's desire to.
 * If you've ever read the book, you might be tempted to write one yourself. No one would blame you.
 * Freudian Excuse - Paul
 * Humiliation Conga - Game's End
 * It Got Worse - And worse. And worse.
 * Kids Are Cruel - They're as cruel as they can get here.
 * Kill the Cutie
 * Les Yay - The epilogue suggests that Barbara's roommate may have had a crush on her...or maybe not. It's a little vague.
 * Peer Pressure Makes You Evil - Many of these kids, it is implied, wouldn't do things to Barbara on their own. Especially Bobby, whose conscience nags at him much of the time. But as a group, they lose their inhibitions, or go along with what the others are doing.
 * Depressingly, this is Truth in Television. People always tend to mentally degenerate in groups like that - take the Bystander Syndrome for example. If one kid saw a dying person in front of him, he would try to help him because he feels 100% responsible. If it was ten kids, each of them would feel only 10% responsible.
 * Punch Clock Villain - Bobby, one of the kids Barbara was babysitting.
 * Purple Prose
 * Rape as Drama
 * Rape Is Love -
 * Later on, due to Stockholm Syndrome
 * Redemption Equals Death:
 * Ripped from the Headlines - Maybe. Some speculate that it was loosely, very loosely, inspired by the Sylvia Likens case (which was a tragedy of its own, also involving kids being very cruel to a teen girl, but was of a very different nature than this book). Others say there are more differences than similarities.
 * Spanner in the Works -
 * Teens Are Monsters - Very much so.
 * Too Good for This Sinful Earth -
 * Took a Level In Badass: Barbara
 * Ripped from the Headlines - Maybe. Some speculate that it was loosely, very loosely, inspired by the Sylvia Likens case (which was a tragedy of its own, also involving kids being very cruel to a teen girl, but was of a very different nature than this book). Others say there are more differences than similarities.
 * Spanner in the Works -
 * Teens Are Monsters - Very much so.
 * Too Good for This Sinful Earth -
 * Took a Level In Badass: Barbara