{{Short description|1969 'Penelope Ashe' novel}} {{About|the 1969 novel|the 1975 film by Radley Metzger|Naked Came the Stranger (film)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}} {{Italic title}} {{Infobox book | italic title = Naked Came the Stranger | name = | image = Naked Came the Stranger.jpg | image_size = | border = | alt = | caption = First edition (publ. Lyle Stuart) | author = | audio_read_by = | title_orig = | orig_lang_code = | title_working = | translator = | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = | release_number = | subject = | genre = | set_in = | publisher = | publisher2 = | pub_date = | english_pub_date = | published = 1969 | media_type = | pages = | awards = | isbn = | isbn_note = | oclc = | dewey = | congress = | preceded_by = <!-- for books in a series --> | followed_by = <!-- for books in a series --> | native_wikisource = | wikisource = | notes = | exclude_cover = | website = | module = }}
'''''Naked Came the Stranger''''' is a 1969 novel written as a literary hoax poking fun at the American literary culture of its time. Though credited to "Penelope Ashe", it was written by a group of twenty-four journalists led by ''Newsday'' columnist Mike McGrady.<ref name="TRR-20170405">{{cite web |author=Staff |title='Naked Came the Stranger' (1975): The Hoax, The Film |url=http://www.therialtoreport.com/2017/04/05/naked-came-the-stranger-2/ |date=April 5, 2017 |work=The Rialto Report |access-date=April 5, 2017 }}</ref>
McGrady's intention was to write a book that was both deliberately terrible and contained a lot of descriptions of sex, to illustrate the point that popular American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar. The book fulfilled the authors' expectations and became a bestseller in 1969. Later that year, they revealed the hoax, spurring the book's popularity.<ref name="McGradyobit">{{cite news|last=Fox|first=Margalit|title=Mike McGrady, Known for a Literary Hoax, Dies at 78|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/business/media/mike-mcgrady-known-for-a-literary-hoax-dies-at-78.html|access-date=September 18, 2012|newspaper=New York Times|date=May 15, 2012|page=B12}}</ref>
==Hoax== Mike McGrady was convinced that popular American literary culture had become so base—with the best-seller lists dominated by the likes of Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann—that any book could succeed if enough sex was thrown in. To test his theory, in 1966 McGrady recruited a team of ''Newsday'' colleagues (according to Andreas Schroder,<ref>Schroder, Andreas. ''Cheats, Charlatans, and Chicanery'' McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 1997.</ref> nineteen men and five women) to collaborate on a sexually explicit novel with no literary or social value whatsoever.<ref name="TRR-20170405" /> McGrady co-edited the project with Harvey Aronson. Among the other collaborators were well-known writers including 1965 Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Goltz, 1970 Pulitzer Prize winner Robert W. Greene, and journalist Marilyn Berger.<ref name="Schudel">Matt Schudel, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140611132009/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-31373689.html "Journalist was ringleader of popular literary spoof"], ''The Washington Post'', May 16, 2012.</ref>
The group wrote the book as a deliberately inconsistent hodge-podge, with each chapter written by a different author. Some of the chapters had to be exactingly edited, because they were judged as originally too well written.
The book was submitted for publication under the pseudonym "Penelope Ashe"; the fictional author was portrayed by McGrady's sister-in-law Billie Young for photographs and meetings with publishers. The back of the first print run's dust jacket features a black-and-white picture of a fully clothed Young with her pet Afghan Hound and the accompanying caption: "PENELOPE ASHE is a demure Long Island housewife...."<ref>[https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/naked_came_the_stranger ''Naked Came the Stranger'' – Museum of Hoaxes.] Retrieved February 25, 2025.</ref>
Lyle Stuart was an independent publisher then known for controversial books, many with sexual content. According to Stuart, he had appropriated the cover photo (a kneeling nude woman with very long hair down her back, photographed from behind) from a Hungarian nudist magazine. Both the model and photographer later demanded and received payment for their work.<ref>Anthony Ramirez, [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/arts/26stuart.html "Lyle Stuart, Publisher of Renegade Titles, Dies at 83"], ''The New York Times'', June 26, 2006.</ref><ref>Christopher Reed, [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jun/29/guardianobituaries.media "Lyle Stuart: US publisher who challenged the constitution and the boundaries of taste"], ''The Guardian'', June 28, 2006.</ref>
==Synopsis== Gillian and William Blake are the hosts of a popular New York City breakfast radio chat show, ''The Billy & Gilly Show'', where they play the perfect couple. When Gillian finds out that her husband is having an affair, she decides to cheat on him with a variety of men from their Long Island neighborhood. Most of the book is taken up by vignettes describing Gilly's adventures with a variety of men, from a progressive rabbi to a mobster.<ref name="TRR-20170405" />
The first chapter introduces the Blakes and the book's plot, with the thirteen subsequent chapters titled and about the characters seduced by Gillian (actual writers in parentheses). * Billy and Gilly * Ernie Miklos * Morton Earbrow (George Vecsey)<ref name="gvecsey120517th">[https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/mike-mcgrady-talentedand-generous Vecsey, George. "Mike McGrady: Talented...and Generous," GeorgeVecsey.com, Thursday, May 17, 2012.] Retrieved February 25, 2025.</ref> * Joshua Turnbull (Jack Schwartz)<ref name="bblifemag690822">[https://books.google.com/books?id=lkwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA69&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false Bruns, Bill. "Naked truth about the great novel hoax," ''LIFE'' (magazine), August 22, 1969.] Retrieved February 25, 2025.</ref> * Arthur Franhop * Mario Vella * Marvin Goodman (Bernie Bookbinder) * Alan Hetterton * Paddy Madigan * Taylor Hawkes (William McIlwain Jr.)<ref name="bblifemag690822"/> * Ansel Varth * Melvin Corby * Willoughby Martin (Gene Goltz)<ref name="bblifemag690822"/> * Zoltan Caradoc
==Reception== The book fulfilled McGrady's cynical expectations, and sales soon reached 20,000 copies,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/business/media/mike-mcgrady-known-for-a-literary-hoax-dies-at-78.html |title=Mike McGrady, Known for a Literary Hoax, Dies at 78 |date=May 15, 2012 |website=The New York Times |access-date=January 28, 2016}}</ref> whereupon the co-authors decided to go public, in August 1969. The male authors gave their confession on ''The David Frost Show'', after being introduced as "Penelope Ashe" and walking out on stage, single file, as the orchestra played the song "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.clydefitchreport.com/2019/08/stranger-days-penelope-ashe/ |title='Stranger' Days: Remembering the Penelope Ashe Hoax |date=August 26, 2019 |website=The Clyde Fitch Report |access-date=November 24, 2019}}</ref> The revelation of the true origins of the book prompted more sales with the book selling approximately 90,000 copies by October 13, 1969.<ref>This figure, with according date, is quoted on the [http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Naked+Came+the+Stranger 20th-Century American Bestsellers' ''Naked Came the Stranger''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928023016/http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Naked+Came+the+Stranger |date=September 28, 2011 }} page.</ref>
''The New York Times'' critiqued in its 3 August 1969 book review, "In the category of erotic fantasy, this one rates about a C. The passing grade is for the author's attempt to twine a few thin strands of humor into her wishful thinking."<ref>[https://theworld.org/stories/2019/11/26/naked-came-stranger-oral-history-2 Kim, Sam. "''Naked Came the Stranger'': An oral history," The World (Public Radio Exchange), Tuesday 26 November 2019.] Retrieved 8 January 2026.</ref> By the end of the year, the book had spent 13 weeks on the ''New York Times'' Best-Seller List,<ref name="McGradyobit"/> although by that time its authorship was common knowledge. It is unclear how much of the book's success was due to its content and how much to publicity about its unusual origin. Profits from its book sales were equally distributed amongst all 25 contributors.<ref name="gvecsey120517th"/> As of May 2012, the book's publisher reported the book had sold 400,000 copies.<ref name="McGradyobit"/>
In 1970, McGrady published ''Stranger Than Naked, or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit'', which told the story of the hoax.<ref name="TRR-20170405" />
==Film== {{main|Naked Came the Stranger (film)}} ''Naked Came the Stranger'' was adapted in 1975 as directed by Radley Metzger and starring Darby Lloyd Rains.<ref name="TRR-20170405" /> As reported by ''The Washington Post'', "Mr. McGrady and the other writers had nothing to do with the hardcore film with the same title. They did, however, see the movie at a Times Square theater. During one vivid scene, Aronson told ''The Charlotte Observer'', someone shouted 'Author, Author!' 'Seventeen of us stood up.{{' "}}<ref name="Schudel"/>
==See also== * ''Atlanta Nights'', a later literary hoax * ''I, Libertine'', an earlier literary hoax * ''Naked Came the Manatee'', a 1996 serialized South Florida mystery thriller parody
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * Ashe, Penelope (pseudonym) (1969). ''Naked Came the Stranger''. {{ISBN|978-1-56980-262-5}} * McGrady, Mike (1970). ''Stranger Than Naked or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun''.
==External links== {{Spoken Wikipedia|Spoken Wikipedia en Naked Came the Stranger.ogg|date=January 3, 2016}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070912060956/http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Naked+Came+the+Stranger Twentieth Century Bestsellers—''Naked Came the Stranger'']
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Category:1969 American novels Category:American erotic novels Category:American novels adapted into films Category:Barricade Books books Category:Collaborative novels Category:Hoaxes in the United States Category:Literary forgeries Category:Novels set in New York City Category:Works published under a pseudonym