Gay Talese

1
Gay Talese

• By Vanson Soo

2
Gay Talese who?

• - Often cited as one of the founders of the 1960s
  "New Journalism"
• Made a career of reporting difficult or
  forbidden subjects to do so, he mastered the
  fine art of hanging out, i.e. stalking
  (literally)
• Famous for his daring pursuit of un-reportable
  stories his exhaustive research and his
  formally elegant style

Touchstones of the finest literary journalism
3
Gay Talese important?
I think theres no doubt he was the most
important journalist of the sixties in terms of
the impact he had on reporters in city rooms all
over the country.
Everyone read what he wrote, especially in
Esquire, and wanted to write like
him. David Halberstam Pulitzer
Prize-winning author
I dont want to be cut. I dont want to drop
into obscurity.
I want to write about something with lasting
appeal.
4
Gay Talese - a timeline
Feb. 7, 1932 Born in Ocean City, N.J
1953 Graduated from U. of Alabama. Joined New
York Times as copyboy
June 1947 - Sept 1949 High school reporter.
Wrote 311 articles columns for the weekly
"Ocean City Sentinel-Ledger"
1955-1965 NYT reporter
1954-1955 US Army, Fort Knox,Kentucky.
Reinstituted a column titled "Fort Knox
Confidential" in the local newspaper, "Inside the
Turret"
1959 Married Nan Ahern
1969 The Kingdom and the Power
1965 onwards Left NYT for Esquire later
became a full-time writer
1980 Thy Neighbors Wife
1971 Honor Thy Father
1992 Unto the Sons
5
Gay Talese - created by?

• Joseph Talese, his Italian-born father, a tailor
• Taleses painstaking craftsmanship as a writer
  derives directly from his tailor forebears - he
  places great stock in material when he writes

His Papa
When preparing to write, he fastens to a
Stryrofoam board with tailors hatpins minuscule,
swatch-like character cards. As he stitches his
scenes together, he seeks seamless construction -
all these practices honoring his fathers
profession.
6
Gay Talese - created by?
- Catherine DePaolo Talese, who ran the familys
dress boutique The Talese Town Shop, taught him
early the secrets of engendering trust
I learned to listen with patience and care, and
never to interrupt, even when people were having
great difficulty in explaining themselves, for
during such halting and imprecise moments people
often
His Mama
are very revealing - what they hesitate to talk
about can tell much about them. Their pauses,
their evasions, their sudden shifts in subject
matter are likely indicators of what embarrasses
them, or irritates them, or what they regard as
too private or imprudent to be disclosed to
another person at that particular time.
Gay Talese
7
Gay Talese - created by?
I knew when we got married that I was going to
go along on his journey. I had, in Hemingways
term, signed on. Our lives would take the
direction that Gay wanted them to take.
His Wife
Nan A. Talese
8
Gay Talese - created by?
Talese felt like a minority within a minority in
Ocean City, New Jersey he was an
Italian-American Catholic in an Irish-Catholic
parish on a Protestant-dominated island. His
later exploration of forbidden subjects in such
works as Honor Thy Father and Thy Neighbors Wife
is rooted in his rebellion against the islands
prohibitions.
His hometown
I come from an island and a family that
reinforced my identity as a marginal American, an
outsider, an alien in my native nation.
Gay Talese
9
Gay Talese - created by?
Himself!
He would pin the pages of a chapter to one wall
and stand back with binoculars to scan the sweep
of the narrative. When his wife Nan returns home
from work, she would read him his days work
aloud.
He would wear a tie or neck scarf when he writes
(at home) - Talese would never wear jeans - as a
sign of formality with which he approaches his
work.
10
Gay Talese - created by?
With some of the money from the movie sale of Thy
Neighbors Wife, he excavated an underground
bunker, his second study in his five-storey
townhouse. Undistracted by windows or telephones,
he concentrates hard on his work to storyboard
his books like movies.
His commitment!
My plans this summer are day to day. I go off to
the bunker every morning at 8 a.m., come up at 1
p.m do the exericse the tennis club then
back to bunkerland from 5 till 830, then
whoopee, Martini Time, sports fans. The same
unchanging routine in the short, happy life of
Gaetano Teleza. Gay Talese, May 22, 1988
11
Gay Talese secrets of his success?
He has made a career of reporting difficult or
forbidden subjects.
How did Talese convince Mafiosi to violate their
code of silence (Honor Thy Father)? How was he
able to recreate actual scenes of sexual
infidelity, using real names and with the
permission of the participants (Thy Neighbors
Wife)?
12
Gay Talese formula
Fine art of hanging out
Talese believes strongly in physical presence
or, as he put it, old-fashioned legwork.
Wherever it is, I try physically to be there in
my role as a curious confidant, a trustworthy
fellow traveler searching into their interior,
seeking to discover, clarify, and finally to
describe in words (my words) what they personify
and how they think. Gay Talese
13
Gay Talese formula
Will wait for a story
Talese took 5 years to gain access to Mafia
son Bill Bonanno to write his second
best-seller Honor Thy Father.
14
Gay Talese formula
Drawn to the unnoticed story - hes the
chronicle of losers and the unnoticed
At Madison Garden, while other reporters were
writing about the fight in the boxing ring,
Talese wrote of the man who rang the bell between
the rounds - someone present yet un-remarked on
and thought unremarkable until Talese turned his
gaze, his indefatigable research and his
respectful language on him.
15
Gay Talese formula
Employs setting to enhance psychological mood
In The Kingdom and The Power, the ghost of New
York Times founder Adolph Ochs haunts each
generation of Times reporters - and readers -
from his busts and portraits brooding down from
the walls.
16
Gay Talese formula
Master of interior monologue
Talese will sometime switch to italics to
telegraph
his movement to his subjects internal feelings
and thoughts. He thinks writing accurate interior
monologue takes time, but its no trick -
hanging out is the key.
17
Gay Talese formula
Favors third person writing
I have preferred the third person because it
allows me to go from person to person. I am like
a director I make the choice of where the
camera is going This gives me a lot of options.
It allows me to be creative and yet
factual. Gay Talese
18
Gay Talese formula
Uses dialogue and quotation SPARINGLY
Almost without exception you can say it better
if you do not have to stay within the quotes.
Usually I also find I can say more in less space
if I do not
use direct quotation. I can convey the essence of
what the person has said, tighten it and improve
it in terms of language, without distorting
meaning. Gay Talese
The story got boring because the writer stopped
writing.
Reporters stopped using their skills. They fell
into quotation, the easy way out.
19
Gay Talese formula
Writing style is vastly detailed, formal and
elaborate
Seldom uses contractions - only one can be
found in Thy Neighbors Wife.
20
Gay Talese formula
Master of creating scenes
Out of boredom I just want to shock people - no,
not shock them, but cause some conflict or
scene. There are times Im sending out trial
balloons. Im trying to change the atmosphere. I
want it to be
more personal, because if it isnt personal, it
doesnt interest me. Gay Talese
21
Gay Talese formula
Enduring patience
In researching for Thy Neighbors Wife, he
clinically quizzed women he barely knew about
their sexual habits.
Everybody got tired of talking about sexual
acts at dinner. It was a long period. For ten
years it was all he would talk about. David
Halberstam
22
Gay Talese formula
NEVER use a tape recorder
To have done so would have possibly inhibited
these individuals candor,
or would have otherwise altered the relaxed,
trusting, and forthcoming atmosphere that I
believe was encouraged by my seemingly less
assiduous research manner. Gay Talese
More important than what people say is what they
think.
23
Gay Talese his subjects
Drawn to Italian-American subjects
including
24
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
By
25
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Esquire sent Talese to Los Angeles in the winter
of 1965 for an interview with Sinatra.

• Upon arrival, Talese was told
• Sinatra was very upset by press headlines about
  his alleged Mafia connections

• Sinatra was suffering from a head cold
• He should submit his story to Sinatras publicist
  prior to publication

26
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
It was not the first time Sinatra was linked to
Mafia. The FBI investigated him in the 1930s.
27
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Sinatra kept mom. Talese was unable to meet face
to face with Frank Sinatra.
So how did Talese produce such a colorful,
detailed and elaborate story?
28
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Talese was deliberately allowed to stay a
distance from Sinatra, and only BRIEFLY, to
observe but not to speak to him. So Talese
interviewed people who had known Sinatra in one
way or another actors,
musicians, studio executives, record producers,
restaurant owners, female acquaintances,
bodyguards and, importantly, Sinatras son and
mother.
29
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
After 5 weeks and close to US5,000 in expenses
in LA, Talese returned to New York and spent
another 6 weeks to produce a 55-page
article drawn from his 200-page chronicle that
represented interviews from more than 100 people.
30
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
While I was never given the opportunity to sit
down and speak alone with Frank Sinatra, this
fact is perhaps one of the strengths of the
article
What could he or would he have said that would
have revealed him better than an observing writer
watching him in action, seeing him in stressful
situations, listening and lingering along the
sidelines of his life?
31
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Besides being denied access to Sinatra, what is
the big deal about the story?
32
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Remember the 5-step outline to writing a feature?

• Strong opening.

2. Nut section nut graph or graphs
3. Current context and/or historical background
4. Themes and issues
5. Strong finish
Talese almost had all these written in the
opening scene alone - stretching 12 pages!
33
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Taleses glaring techniques in his 12-page
opening scene?
Occasional diversion from the bar scene to
provide history, background, context, elaboration
and amplification but constantly returning to the
bar scene with smooth transitions.
34
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Like a MOVIE!
Impact?
It is like a black-and-white timeless movie with
lasting appeal
35
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
The 12-page opening scene
From to
36
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Where he pours all his formula into the pot
37
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
What could be Taleses objective(s)?

• Maintain readers interests

2. Sustain tempo and mood
3. SCENES! SCENES!
38
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
Taleses formulae - all in the story!

• Fine art of hanging out?
• Will wait for a story?
• Drawn to the unnoticed story?
• Employs setting to enhance psychological mood?
• Master of interior monologue?
• Favors third person writing?
• Uses dialogue and quotation sparingly?
• Writing style is vastly detailed, formal and
  elaborate?
• Master of creating scenes?
• Enduring patience?
• Never use a tape recorder?

39
Gay Talese now?
Still hanging out waiting for a story!
40
Gay Talese now?
Has been hanging out with both the Bobbitts over
the years
41
Gay Talese now?
Has been hanging out in China to reach the woman
footballer who missed the crucial penalty against
the US at the Rose Bowl.
42
Thank you!