a mobster. Reception The book fulfilled McGrady's cynical expectations, and sales soon reached 20,000 copies, 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". The revelation of the true origins of the book prompted more sales with the book selling approximately 90,000 copies by October 13, 1969. By the end of the year, the book had spent 13 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, 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. As of May 2012, the book's publisher reported the book had sold 400,000 copies. In 1970, McGrady published Stranger Than Naked, or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit, which told the story of the hoax. Film Naked Came the Stranger was adapted in 1975 as directed by Radley Metzger and starring Darby Lloyd Rains. 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. 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 Further reading Ashe, Penelope (pseudonym) (1969). Naked Came the Stranger. McGrady, Mike (1970). Stranger Than Naked or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun. External links Twentieth Century Bestsellers—Naked Came the Stranger 1969 American novels American erotic novels American novels adapted into films Barricade Books titles Collaborative novels Hoaxes in the United States Literary forgeries Novels set in New York City Works published under a pseudonym