The Mao Game

by Joshua Miller

It opens with a card game. Played between Jordan's mother and grandmother, the game is called The Mao, and, like the adult world in which he is prematurely thrust, the rules seem arbitrary and the stakes staggeringly high -- whoever wins the game wins custody of him. So begins this 15-year-old child actor's odyssey through the temptations of Hollywood and the emotional minefield of his family's life. As the story unfolds, we learn that Jordan's father has molested him throughout his childhood and that his mother, a narcissistic woman immersed in her acting career, has little interest in him. The only stable force in his life is his grandmother, a remarkable woman with whom Jordan shares everything from dances to drugs to his innermost confidences; a woman who is slowly dying. Heart-wrenching and highly cinematic, The Mao Game sheds light on both the fragile vulnerability and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. An unmistakably modern coming-of-age story, it marks the triumphant debut of an important new voice in the next generation of American novelists.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 1997

Reviews

[Stacy Helton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joshua Miller has an interesting pedigree. He is the son of actor (The Exorcist) and playwright (That Championship Season) Jason Miller and actress Susan Bernard of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! In turn, she is the daughter of well-known photographer Bruno Bernard. Joshua was a second-tier teen actor in the 1980s and 1990s, best known for River’s Edge and Halloween III. I bring up this pedigree to discuss Miller’s semi-autobiographical novel about a teen actor growing up in Los Angeles, torn between his mother, an actress, and his dying grandmother. This talented photographer was sexually abused as a young girl in Nazi Germany. The book’s title comes from a card game whose aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules that vary by venue. In the book teen Jordan Highland moves in with his grandmother when his mother loses him a game of Mao. Miller’s book is a beautifully descriptive journey through Los Angeles as Jordan meets a stripper and develops a heroin addiction. Jordan has severe PTSD due to his sexual abuse at the hands of his father, a Heisman trophy winner. The scenes of abuse are graphically explicit and explain much of Jordan’s behaviors. Miller has beautifully written prose and a sly sense of humor. When his grandmother, while cancer is ending her life, ignores her Meals on Wheels food, she declares, after seeing the contents, “I don’t want to die middle class.” Miller, who has gone on to pen scripts like the delightful The Final Girl, has written a moving story of loss and redemption, featuring the ugly side of Tinseltown, where a boy pawns his dying grandmother’s minks for just a little bit of smack.

[David Gagen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a confronting story that is quite well written. I would have preferred, however, to read Grandma's memoir. This would have been so much more interesting.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second time reading the book... I read it when it first came out because I was a fan of Joshua Miller's acting in several movies I liked. I found it really hard to stomach the first time and actually stopped reading it. Perhaps when I re-read it I had that in the back of my mind... I wasnt' trying to ... but I finished it this time. It's not a fluffy easy read and somewhat autobiographical fiction from what I remember so that made it difficult... but I finished it and am glad that I did.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a trippy, wacky tale of a child star growing up in Hollywood with a unique, challenging family situation. It's written by the little brother from "Teen Witch." He probably wishes I didn't know that.

[C.]

Solely because I am currently obsessed by the Chairman's Game. Someone come play with me!