DO NOT ASHE ME MY NAME



In 1969 British journalist David Frost introduced his guest - Penelope Ashe - author of a recent best-selling novel. The novel, Naked Came the Stranger, was an erotic literary smash. Surely a comely young sexy-librarian type wrote the book, and would soon take the stage all intellectual in a mini dress and Go-Go boots, glasses askew just so. When Frost announced Miss Ashe the author came out, and came out, and came out, until the stage was filled with 23 men and two women. Naked Came the Stranger was a literary hoax.

Mike McGrady, a journalist for Newsday magazine, decided to pull a prank on the publishing industry. He felt that books at that time were all sizzle and smut. Jacqueline Susann was publishing's it girl after the success of Valley of the Dolls - a pill popping, booze soaked showbiz pot boiler. McGrady thought that if "trash" like Valley of the Dolls could earn best seller status, then he could do the same. He asked a team of 25 writers - mostly men - to each write a chapter based around a basic plot. "Good writing will be heavily edited" McGrady told his co-conspirators.

The "plot" of Naked Came the Stranger focuses on Gillian and William Blake, hosts of a radio chat show. William's "little Willie" wanders to other ladies and Gillian decides what the gander does, the goose can too. She then embarks on a journey of erotic encounters with other men - including a mobster and a rabbi (oy, we should all have such a mitzvah!) McGrady and company touted Penelope Ashe as a quiet suburban housewife with erotic fantasies who could never act on them (Betty Draper cheating on Don with the washing machine, etc.), so she wrote them into a book. McGrady chose a photo from a Hungarian porn magazine as the novel's cover, and his sister-in-law posed as Ashe for publicity pics.

After revealing the hoax fervor for the novel grew larger (giggle.) Sales exploded to 90,000 copies, and the novel stayed on the best seller list for 13 weeks. McGrady was offered a great deal of money to write a sequel, but declined. He instead wrote an expose on the hoax. Naked Came the Stranger was meant to teach readers a literary lesson, but McGrady learned a lesson instead - sex, fake or not, sells.


SOURCES :

Naked Came the Stranger. Wikipedia.

Mike McGrady. Wikipedia.


FURTHER MEDIA ~

BOOKS :

Naked Came the Stranger


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