Gay Talese

A while ago Wikipedia had a front page article about Gay Talese’s Esquire article ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’, a landmark in New Journalism and, in Esquire's own opinion, the best story the magazine ever published.

Having read it, it is a hell of a story. It is also a perfect example of New Journalism: pairing techniques from fiction writing (telling the story using scenes, adding in everyday details to color the narrative, using dialogue rather than quotations or statements) with the show more detailed research and strict adherence to factual accuracy of traditional reporting. These articles read like short stories, except every detail is true.

This book contains several famous Talese articles primarily from the 1960s although there are some later ones. Every article was worth reading, but ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold' was my favourite.

In a book made up of a collection of very good articles, the opener, ‘New York is a City of Things Unnoticed’, is one of the weaker ones. It works well as an introduction to Talese’s themes and, instead of following a central protaganist, it examines some of the quirky, out of the way places and people that go unnoticed in one of the more populous areas on the planet. I think reading through it would give enough of a flavor to decide whether the book is worth the purchase, I just don’t think it is as strong as the articles which follow.

From there, we read profiles of several retired heavy weight fighters, the man who writes obituaries for the New York Times, a retired Joe DiMaggio and the founders of The Paris Review plus others. All of these articles read like beautifully written, literate short stories rather than dry, "just the facts ma'am" reporting.

Even so, in the two essays where Talese talks about himself ('Origins of a Nonfiction Writer' and 'When I was Twenty-five'), he takes pains to point out that his writing is as thoroughly researched as his writing was when he worked for The Times. He never falsifies quotes, changes names or creates composite characters.

I think the final article, 'Walking My Cigar' was a weak finish to the book. As a solo article, it isn't bad. But there was a perceptible dip compared to the articles that came before it. The Gay Talese Reader is a strong collection of beautifully written New Journalism pieces book-ended by weaker articles.

‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’ alone makes the book worth the purchase, but all of the articles were entertaining, insightful and extremely well-written. show less

This just fed my persistently nosy mentality. Part of me is horrified by this -- horrified that I slurped this book up in less than 3 hours of reading, horrified that this went on and he never got caught, horrified for all those people who never had any idea that someone was violating one of their fundamental human rights.

But it's like a bad car accident, or a crime scene -- you just can't look away. I have a hard time believing that Talese would publish this book if he didn't feel show more confident about 99% of what this guy was saying. His credibility and all previous works would be just like Lehrer's fall from grace. Too risky. He's been in the game too long to do something stupid. That said, I don't know if I believe everything Foos transcribed in his journal.

But yo -- what an egotistical, misogynistic asshole he is. And his wives are just as culpable for facilitating his hobby. show less

When it comes to collections of essays or short stories, I’ve always struggled to get through them quickly—or even at a normal pace. No matter how great one story or essay might have been, jumping straight into a new one with completely different settings and characters left me feeling less engaged. That said, these essays might have just changed how I think about reading them more often.

The book has nine essays, a third of which focus on heavyweight champions: Joe Louis, Floyd show more Patterson, and Muhammad Ali. Each essay takes a different angle. With Louis, it reads like a fast-paced sports article—sharp and direct. With Patterson, it digs deeper, almost into the soul of a fighter. And with Ali, it shifts focus, becoming less about the man himself and more about the world surrounding him.

Just when I thought nothing could top the heated exchange between Frank Sinatra and Harlan Ellison, I hit the essay Ali in Havana 1996. It was a fascinating contrast to the former—an unusual encounter between Castro and Ali that included a magic trick. show less

This is one of those odd books that I picked randomly, not entirely sure why, except the premise was interesting. Its a story of a man who spies on the visitors of his motel, noting down what happened including any sexual encounters that happened.

It was strangely compelling. The story itself isn't about the voyeurism of the proprietor, Gerald Foos, but about the proprietor himself, an unreliable source of information, fact-checking after the story shows things didn't happen, or happened show more differently. However, Mr. Foos, really wanted to tell his story. In Gerald's mind, his spying on couples (and threesomes) at the motel, in all sorts of combinations was a study on human relations.

Regardless of truthiness of the events told, its a story of an interesting person with objectionable morals, whose peccadilloes are rather mild, in the scheme of things. show less