Dear Hef, You’ve Got E-Male: The Dark Side of Internet Hook-Ups Meets the Playboy Cool of Hugh Hefner in Updated Version of Provocative Novel DEAR HEF Released Today on Amazon and Smashwords

The dark side of Internet hook-ups meets the Playboy cool of publisher Hugh Hefner in an updated version of my provocative, sexy and hilarious erotic fiction novel entitled DEAR HEF, which was released on Amazon and Smashwords today.

This is my fourth novel. DEAR HEF was originally released by my former publisher almost six years ago, but I have completely re-edited and revised this new indie publication.

The intriguing and provocative new cover was designed by Dancinee Jennings, who also created covers for my recent novels MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK. I also wanted to single out the excellent formatting work of Word-2-Kindle.com. Both proved very helpful in the quick turnaround of my novel.

DEAR HEF is still as funny and naughty as ever. DEAR HEF explores my long-time admiration for Hefner through the e-mails of a fan, the book’s main protagonist, a 28-year old Long Beach man named Jimmy Rausch. Essentially, Jimmy wants to be like Hef, but he’s clueless, and nothing like the iconic publisher, which only adds to the book’s humor.

However, Jimmy has a simple plan: to use the Internet in an attempt to transform himself into a playboy worthy of his hero Hef.  The entire book is told through a series of e-mails between Jimmy and his lovers, and online correspondence Jimmy sends to Hef to keep him updated with the progress of what he calls his “Playboy training.”

What Jimmy fails to realize is that his naughty adventures with women he meets online truly border on the ridiculous and the absurd, and hardly live up to Playboy’s sexy and cool tradition. Yet by the novel’s close, Jimmy continues to hope for a coveted invitation to the Playboy Mansion from Hef himself.

Since I had my first Playboy Magazine subscription in my mid-teens, I have been fascinated with the Playboy mystique and the interesting and unconventional life of publisher Hugh Hefner. Hef and his magazine represent for me (and many others) a peek into a sexy, wonderful, hedonistic and classy world that fueled my adolescent and later adult dreams.

My inspiration for my novel is actually a literary one — Ring Lardner’s dark and comedic short story “Haircut.” Haircut’s story is told by a barber who is giving a haircut to a customer. The barber relates a series of shocking anecdotes revealing that he is closed-minded, uptight and intolerant, and condones the harassment of those who don’t fit into the strict community standards of the town he resides in. However, the barber remains oblivious to how he looks to the reader as he tells his troubling and ugly tales.

I have admired Lardner’s story since I first read it in my high school English class and later when I read it again in college at California State University, Long Beach. I thought it might be interesting to create a character that shared his wild tales of erotic desperation with Hef via the modern convenience of e-mail. Jimmy is pretty much as clueless as the barber in Lardner’s story in that he doesn’t realize how embarrassing and pathetic he looks in comparison to Hef’s cool example and lifestyle.

Jimmy’s female lovers are also given a voice in this novel as their e-mails are forwarded to Hef and hence shared with the readers. Yet the highlight of the book remains Jimmy’s hilarious e-mails to his hero Hef.  That is the core of my novel and what makes it unique from any other erotica book out there right now.

DEAR HEF does have some similarities with my previous novels MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK in that it is another unflinching peek into the male sexual mind.

The novel’s character Jimmy is more naive, younger and oblivious than Jake Dalmas, the protagonist of MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK. Unlike Jake, it is debatable whether Jimmy learns anything by the end of Dear Hef, which has a much darker and hilarious ending than MONOGAMY SUCKS or its sequel.

Jimmy does share some of Jake’s sarcastic wit and humor in describing his sexual foibles and his encounters with the women he meets. I once again leave nothing out or hold anything back in addressing sexual and controversial topics.

I wanted to honestly show the good, bad and ugly of Internet sex and dating as I did with the swinging lifestyle in MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK. I was curious to find out if the Internet would make finding sex and lovers easier, but I have discovered as Jimmy does that online life is no different from off-line life. The same principles apply.  Sex and dating are never so simple. There are consequences to all you do.

DEAR HEF also focuses exclusively on the subject of Internet sex hook-ups and casual sex and doesn’t explore the swinging lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of explicit sex depicted in DEAR HEF, but it doesn’t exist outside the realm of conventional one on one sex. People of all ages are engaging in some form of Internet sex or dating these days so the phenomenon of Internet hook-ups is common and widespread these days.

If you enjoyed the raw, frank, funny erotica of my previous novels, you will appreciate DEAR HEF. It’s another dose of my real life erotica. I have no doubt you find many of the books’ depictions of online sex encounters true to life and quite humorous and well worth the time exploring.

Indie publishing continues to prove a revelation for me. I have never felt so free as a writer in my life. So look for new books soon, including an updated version of my short story SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL, which I am revising into a novella for a summer launch, my first poetry collection BACKYARD POETRY, and a new updated version of my first novel LETTERS FROM CYBERSPACE.

Stay tuned as always.

GP