For the past several years there have been reissues of works by the master of the “new journalism,” Gay Talese. These have been put together in different ways: in 2010 there was a collection of sports writing: “The Silent Season of a Hero,” which includes “The Locker Room,” from the “Crimson-White” in 1952. Even then, he avoided the obvious. The story is not a scene of celebration but exhaustion and disappointment after an Alabama loss to Georgia Tech, 7-3.
After graduation from UA in 1953 Talese went to work for the “New York Times” and there continued to write about what others in New York City had not noticed. This generous 432-page gathering begins with a chapter from his first book, “A Serendipiter’s Journey,” 1961, a compilation of round-the-clock observations and curiosity-driven research.
Talese tells us “each day about 250 people die, 460 are born and 150,000 walk through the city wearing eyes of glass or plastic.” New Yorkers also “guzzle 460,00 gallons of beer” daily. Talese tells us about the lives of apartment house doormen, and the lives of street cats. The writing is grammatically accurate, syntactically sophisticated, yet smooth, detailed, elegant and powerful. Rereading Talese is a pleasure second only to enjoying it the first time.
The editors here have included his entire book “The Bridge,” the story of the building of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge which covers not only the bridge but the lifestyles, even the biographies of the tough, hard-drinking, nomadic workers who drive the rivets hundreds of feet in the air. The story of the townhouse at East 62nd Street is also included entire. Dr. Nicholas Bartha, rather than lose his home in a disastrous divorce settlement, blew it and himself up in a huge gas explosion. Amazingly, Talese tells the story of Dr. Bartha and of that city lot from the seventeenth century, past the explosion, to the present.
In a charming piece about the recording session of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, doing “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp,” Talese captures the warmth, affection and respect between these two obviously very nice people.
Talese has said his favorite—perhaps best—article ever is “Mr. Bad News,” his piece on the anonymous obituary writer of the “New York Times.” That piece is amazing, but “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” is in a class by itself. For weeks Talese shadowed Sinatra, in bars, in Beverly Hills, in NY, in a TV studio and recording studio, on stage in Vegas. We see Sinatra with his family, his friends, his entourage, as Talese silently watches, takes notes, listens, painting the portrait of Sinatra, a demanding, gregarious, generous and volatile man, one brush stroke at a time.
It is a wonder to me that any writer, after the publication of that piece in “Esquire,” had the nerve to write a magazine article, ever again.
