The inner workings of a writer's life, the interplay between
experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of
the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life--the zeal for the
truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that
won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for
his revelatory books about "The New York Times (The Kingdom and the
Power), "the Mafia "(Honor Thy Father), "the sex industry "(Thy
Neighbor's Wife), "and, focusing on his own family, the American
immigrant experience "(Unto the Sons). "
" "
How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or
inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his
college newspaper; his professional climb at "The New York Times;
"his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine
writing at "Esquire "and then to books. We see his involvement with
issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent
interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the
fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the
changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last
fifty years, and a striking look at the lives--and their
meaning--of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes
of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe
DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his
interview with the head of a Mafia family.
But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men
and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In
remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant
location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of onerestaurateur
after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor's were
born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese
soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its
latest manifestation.
In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a
fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness
involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us
represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it,
the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.
Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned--a dazzling book about the
nature of writing in one man's life, and of writing itself.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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