Abstract
In the mid-1970s, Raven Corporation emerges from obscurity to become the leading toy manufacturer by producing action figures for popular TV shows and celebrities. In 1976, Raven’s charismatic president passes up the chance to make toys for a new film, Star Wars. The present action of the novel takes place 30 years later during a nostalgic renewal of interest in Raven. The two sons of Charles Carrigan, long estranged from each other, cross paths at a comic book convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Seth Carrigan, the narrator, lives in Baltimore and works as a junk mail writer. His brother Pete is an entrepreneur on the fringe of the entertainment industry. Seth becomes drawn into a bizarre subculture of collectors who seek a missing prototype for a never-produced Posable figure. Rival manufacturers also seek the one-of-a-kind toy in order to duplicate it and revive the long-defunct Posables line. As Seth joins in the hunt, he uncovers mysteries buried in Raven and in his own family. Never Played With dramatizes a family crisis against a backdrop of turbulent social change: the endgame of Vietnam, the rise of divorce, the oil crisis, and the emergence of grand distractions from these woes, the first blockbuster films: Jaws and Star Wars. Seth Carrigan confronts the past in an effort to understand his father, his family, and his own complicated legacy.
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