Accidental Playboy is the hilarious, erotic, and provocative memoir of a sensitive post-modern man who stumbles into the dream job of a lifetime. When
Playboy magazine tapped Leif Ueland to report on its nationwide search for the Playmate of the Millennium, he was the ultimate confused American male. A self-professed nice guy, raised in a family with strong feminist traditions, Ueland had retreated from even the idea of dating, opting instead to wrestle with his stalled first novel. In short, he thought himself the last man to be on
Playboy's roving audition bus, never mind its official reporter. And yet, something deep within his psyche leapt at the opportunity.
In this Hunter Thompsonesque chronicle, Ueland describes his six months in a high-tech mobile photo studio - an upside-down world where women can't wait to disrobe and get into the pages of Playboy. He tells of the seen-it-all photographers, the jaded female PR rep, and of course, the Playmate hopefuls themselves, a parade of young women looking for a better life - and simultaneously more and less innocent than we expect. Wading deeper and deeper into a sea of beauty, nudity, sex, and ambition, Ueland undergoes an intriguing transformation that discloses important truths about men and women and the gravitational forces that bind them.
An extraordinary work of reportage and a powerful look at American sexual mores, Accidental Playboy is also hilarious, showing what happens when a "shy guy" breaks out of his shell, and the whole world starts spinning his way.
Accidental Playboy is also available in print from Warner Books.
