Accidental Playboy

July 29, 2002
"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. Agent, Laura Dail. (Nov.)Forecast:Ads in
Sports Illustrated and blurbs from John Leguizamo and
Nerve.com
founder Rufus Griscom will target this memoir's audience, and one can only imagine what a book release party for the media might be like (Warner hasn't said anything yet). But will guys respond? The cover art—which is suggestive but not quite titillating—might help.