Accidental Playboy: Caught in the Ultimate Male Fantasy [Hardcover]

Leif Ueland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2002

A freelance writer learns what it's like to be a single, heterosexual guy in an unsteady world when he's invited to travel cross-country for six months on the "Playboy Bus" in search of the Playmate of the Millennium.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I scan through the familiar terrain married, mother, 35C... until I come to the final section... She's written: `I volunteer as a pediatric AIDS worker, which I consider a great honor,' " details Ueland, as he notes yet another ironic, cultural incongruity in his job as the house reporter for Playboy's six-month national search for Playmate of the Millennium. If "35C" and "pediatric AIDS worker" seems to be a contradiction, so is Ueland and his job. He says he's "never been the Playboy guy," and he appears to have gotten this gig because, while working on his novel, he wrote a humorous article about his sexual insecurities entitled "Trials of a Gay-Seeming Straight Male." Indeed, Ueland writes at length here about his therapy sessions dealing with his identity crisis as a heterosexual male who desires women outside of the Playboy paradigm. When Ueland is at his best, this sometimes shapeless, on-the-road memoir crackles with fine, mordant observations, and he can astutely communicate his emotional disjuncture with this project: "I really am invisible, standing in the middle of the crowd. I watch mutely." But too often Ueland's epiphanies feel slightly shop-worn: "These girls, the Myras, Mollys, and Hesters you know what? I'm like them. They're just likable." Frequent name-dropping (Graham Greene, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway), while ironic, looks silly. In the end, Ueland learns that being a heterosexual male doesn't mean being a womanizer, but while his journey is often entertaining, it doesn't yield surprising insights.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Thirty years after Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and Phillip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, a journalist dons the gonzo-mantle of Hunter Thompson as he tries to understand the unsteady, often baffling, concept of male heterosexuality. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (November 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446527009
• ISBN-13: 978-0446527002
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #826,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The funniest insight into 30-something straight guys, November 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Accidental Playboy: Caught in the Ultimate Male Fantasy (Hardcover)

Everyone straight male in his 30s will get this book. And every woman will be so amazed (and happy) about what they learn. What a talented, hilarious, loveable guy (and writer). As clever as Dave Eggers or Woody Allen, but much more... more sweet, or honest, or real -- something.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars accidental find, August 17, 2003

By 

"rmtx" (McAllen,Tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accidental Playboy: Caught in the Ultimate Male Fantasy (Hardcover)

I found this book in the political figures section of audible.com and downloaded it on a whim. It turns out to be the most entertaining piece of non-fiction that I have read/heard in a long time.
Leif Ueland, fearless reporter, begins the 1999 search for the millenium playmate very tentatively and is hesitant to dive into the playboy culture. As the bus trip/search progresses, he becomes more bold and lives out a handful of his own "Hef-scapades". Leif Ueland offers an incredibly insightful and sensitive perspective of the millenium playmate search and the Playboy corporate culture. The book is reminiscent of Hunter S Thompson trips but with a 90's flair.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprising and Funny, November 12, 2002

By 

Kelly Gruver (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accidental Playboy: Caught in the Ultimate Male Fantasy (Hardcover)

I actually just finished listening to this book from Audible.com, and I jumped on Amazon to buy copies for people I know...which I am normally hesitant to do-push copies of something I have read onto others. But this book is surprising...an insight into a world that is not normally avaiable to most of us...and funny...because this is not the "typical" male response you would expect in light of seeing scads of women naked and often available. As a woman, I thought that it was kind of liberating, and as an avid reader of Playboy, a fun "backstage" view of part of that mystical world. Leif is undoubtedly on the fringes of the Playboy world, but gives a unique perspective on the human condition, as it relates to gender and sexuality. An easy, must read for many!