Description

Nudism Comes to Connecticut by Susan Schade and Jon Buller

Hardcover – Fantagraphics – Jun 2023 – 176 pages

Nudism Comes to Connecticut is a fascinating graphic memoir of optimism, debt, nakedness and real estate scheming in the early 1930s.

Frank Mallett, inspired by cooperative colonies he had visited in Europe, returned home envisioning utopian communities of bohemian emigrés and artistic intellectuals proliferating in sylvan harmony. With the crash of 1929 his already floundering enterprises seemed doomed — until he discovered a growing interest in healthy, wholesome nudism.

Closely based on actual people and events, Nudism Comes to Connecticut exposed the conflict between the ecstasy of the “exquisite naked plunge” and voyuerism, competitiveness, and greed by way of many period writings and letters. Although Frank’s love of nature never falters, he learns that there is more to nudism than meets the eye.