Paul Monette wrote a foreword for an edition of "A Rock and a Hard Place", later defending the book's veracity. Armistead Maupin, who wrote a blurb for an edition of "A Rock and a Hard Place", later wrote "The Night Listener", a novel subsequently made into a film, in which the main character begins correspondence with an HIV-positive boy who is not what he seems. The book parallels Maupin's experience with Johnson. The story was also adapted for a 2002 episode of "" entitled "", with the child's sex being changed to female and the illness to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.