Customer Reviews

Naked Came the Stranger

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since borrowing a dog-eared copy from friends who were passing it around a number of years ago, I have not been able to get my hands on this book which became a short-lived cult favorite -- hope Amazon.com can come through! Under a "nom de plume," a group of writers each took a chapter to prove how ostensibly easy it is to write a successful "trash novel!" All the talk shows were trying to get the non-existent author Penelope Ashe for interviews! Sexy but outrageously funny -- ice cubes will never be the same!

It's a terrible book. The characters are uninteresting, the motivations are obscure, the machinery is obvious, the sex is strange and unerotic, the writing is terrible. But in spite of everything, Naked Came The Stranger is a hoot. There's nothing you can point at and say, "This redeems", but the book is so weirdly enjoyable that it really doesn't matter. Read it in autumn, hide it from your friends, finish it in an afternoon. One of my all-time favorites.

Knowing beforehand that each chapter was written by a different author was what led me to read it (I had to borrow it from a college prof since it's so hard to find)--and it in no way hindered my reading! The book came together extremely well and was a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the intertwining lives of the characters. It's become a staple on my bookshelf for when I just need a good quick read.

The stories behind this book are pretty well known now, but let us drift back to when it was first published. I can remember it vividly and remember all the hoopla surrounding the event. Unlike most of the reading public, and unlike half of you reading this review right now, I fully admit that I bought and read the thing when it was first published. Now, in my defense, both my wife and I, after reading it, thought it was one of the most horribly written books we had ever come across. But the point is, we actually paid out good cash for the thing as did hundreds and hundreds of others. This, I think, is the point the multiple authors were trying to make.

The book is indeed terrible. But I have to admit that I gave it a second read recently, this time knowing what it was, and I do have to give the authors credit. They did their job well. As others have pointed out, the plot nonexistent, the characters shallow, the sex is boring (actually, sort of funny on some level), the organization of the book is terrible and it was the type of book that you did not want to be seen reading. As I said, the authors did their job.

Now it is easy to set back now that we know the full story behind the writing of the book and knowingly nod our heads, but I can actually remember some pretty well know T.V. types that were quite impressed with the work and I can remember some book reviews that actually give it pretty good ratings. I do feel the book showed us something about ourselves, and that is a good thing, even if we don't particularly like what we see.

I have often felt we have been duped from time to time, not only in literature, but in art (Andy Warhol comes to mind), and suspect we will be again in the future. Any time we get to feeling a bit smug about our "sophistication," I think a good slap in the face like this work is good for us. The only thing I fear is that all of the finger pointers, i.e. those who said and are saying, "look, see what a bunch of unwashed, uncouth and uneducated yahoos the men and women on the street are," are the actual folks that should be taking heed to this sort of thing. A quick read through publications such as The New Yorker and its ilk make my point.

Read this one for the pure joy of reading really rotten literature, but remember, as Pogo once said, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."

Whew! Im glad I found out this book was intentionally bad...Because it is, it's really bad. But for some reason you really can't put it down. Its so tasteless, I actually read it in secrecy. Its characters are pathetic, the sex scenes are just...bad? there really is no plot line, no climax, or conclusion. I am having a hard time comprehending how they achieved this.

The five stars are for the concept which was to write a terrible, formulaic book. They succeeded.

I was very pleased at the care taken by the sender of my recent purchase. He was late in sending my purchase so deducted my shipping costs as he felt badly that the book wasn't sent in a timely fashion. Hurray for him! As to the content of the book, I had read the book waaay back in the 70's and thought it so clever and fun and was telling my Lady's group about it so that's why I ordered it.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
A married couple host the "Gilly and Billy" show on TV. Gilly finds out her husband is cheating on her. In revenge she has sex with a variety of men--each chapter is devoted to a different one. She seduces a few married men, a biker, a rabbi, a gay man etc. etc.

Now this obviously wouldn't be written today with STDs and AIDS but back then it wasn't an issue. This book was meant to be a joke. A bunch of writers from "Newsday" magazine noticed all the sex books that were coming out in the early 1970s. They decided to write their own as a joke and see what would happen. To everybody's surprise it was published AND became a runaway bestseller! It led to an X rated porno movie also. However the book itself really isn't that explicit. Sex does happen but it's not graphically described. Also it's written quite obviously (I thought) as a joke. The jokes are subtle but they're in there. This isn't to be taken seriously for one minute. The part that really had me laughing is when she seduced a gay man...and he loves it! You see he wasn't gay...he had just never found the right woman! I find it hard to believe that anyone took that seriously.

So--all in all--it's a quick funny book. Perfect for the beach or the pool.

A group of journalists wrote this book to find out if a deliberately bad but sex-filled novel would sell well. Unfortunately it did sell well, and sales exceeded their expectations.

This book is SUPPOSED to be bad. And almost all of it is bad in dull, non-humorous way.

You should remember the point this book made, but you shouldn't read it.

i did not read naked came the stranger, but i read a hilarious account of how this book came about by mike mcgrady called "stranger than naked or how to write a dirty book for fun and profit." i am currently in search for another copy for a friend because i laughed out loud reading how 25 writers pulled a very professional hoax. hope you read it, its great!