If you’re looking for a book that soundly illustrates how money and power corrupt and screw up your kids, may I suggest Jennifer Saginor’s memoir PLAYGROUND: A CHILDHOOD LOST INSIDE THE PLAYBOY MANSION?
The eldest daughter of Hugh Hefner’s personal “physician” – one famously termed “Dr. Feelgood” for wholly appropriate reasons – Saginor virtually grew up inside the anything-goes party palace of the world’s most famous porn publisher. A product of a broken home when Mom gets jealous of all the Playmates, Jennifer finds solace in the free arcade games and endless supply of snacks.
But that changes as she gets older. Forever watching her father treat the centerfolds and centerfold wannabes as mere objects – “I’d bet you could fit a lot of cocks inside that mouth” is his idea of a good pickup line (because it works) – she inherits a vastly skewed image of what a woman is supposed to be, do and think. Since Dad plies the day’s conquest with painkillers and other pharmaceuticals, Jennifer also turns to self-medication and sexperimentation, drunkenly losing her virginity to a guy she doesn’t know and later finding she prefers the company of other women.
This all is sad, and Dr. Saginor undoubtedly earns the title of Worst Father Ever, but the time this pattern of behavior is established, PLAYGROUND operates on a loop: drink, drugs, sex, repeat. The effect of reading about it is almost as numbing as actually doing it. That it’s all written in present tense is an annoyance, and for someone who was wasted so much of her youth, Saginor apparently harbors a crystal-clear memory as to what pop song was playing on what radio station for any given night (either that or a well-worn copy of Joel Whitburn’s THE BILLBOARD BOOK OF TOP 40 HITS next to her word processor).
PLAYGROUND would be more interesting if Saginor had let the story be less about herself and incorporate more about the famous stars and starlets with whom she hung out. For example, as a child, she remembers playing hide-and-seek in the mansion with Dorothy Stratten a few days before the Playmate of the Year was murdered by her estranged husband, or walking in on John Belushi riding a floppy-breasted Playmate when she was six years old. These type of anecdotes are more revealing and interesting, but they’re glossed over in favor of yet another mention of when Saginor skipped school or swiped some Xanax. I wanted more about bunnies, not a dead horse. –Rod Lott
“She pulls her jeans off along with her lavender satin G-string. She continues to kiss me and I am so aroused that there is no stopping the inevitable. She spreads her legs wider, pushing my hand toward her wetness, and I giggle like a nervous schoolgirl. ‘I’m so wet, if you don’t go down on me I’m going to have to go upstairs and get my vibrator,’ she warns, chuckling.”
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I think there is a better “bunny fix” on the way this fall.
Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion
by Izabella St. James (Hardcover – September 30, 2006)
The bunnificent author was at BEA last week.
Now that’s more like it!