Will I love Shoulder Season?

I’ve lived in Wisconsin since 1985, and somehow I had no idea there used to be a thriving Playboy resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

After the book came out I learned I even have a family member who worked security there—that’s how little people around here talk about this juicy history. Christina Clancy’s book is set in the 1980s in both Lake Geneva and the smaller community of East Troy, and she does an excellent job of balancing the celebrity and historical elements with the young Wisconsin women themselves and the complex relationship so many of them had with the… show more.

Growing up five hours away in Minnesota, I had no idea that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin – a small Midwest town surrounded by farmland – was home to a Playboy Club for over a decade. Clancy, a born-and-bred Wisconsinite, did her research, dramatizing the lives of local women before, during, and after their stints in the club with ample heart and heartbreak. Capturing the dreams, complexity, and contradictions of rural Midwestern women as well as anyone this side of Bonnie Jo Campbell, it’s become one of the books I recommend to anyone who wants to understand my home region.