I’m currently deeply immersed in Gay Talese’s book, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” which chronicles the sexual revolution and cultural shift of the 60s and 70s as well as its origins. Like many journalism students, I hold Talese as one of my heroes. Occasionally, when I’m stuck on a story, I often take a break to reread one of his essays or stories. I’m always struck by the stylistic purity of his prose. It’s never showy or overwrought, and seems to convey exactly the right facts with astonishing detail, leaving the reader wondering, “How the hell did he know that?”
Emulating Talese is a tough task that I imagine will take time and practice. But when I came across an interview of him on Charlie Rose recently, I decided that I might be able to adopt as least one of his reporting axioms.
“You should dress for the story!” he said with verve. As always, Talese was nattily dressed in a three-piece suit.
The son of an Italian tailor, Talese has in the past written about his devotion to style and well-made suits as both a show of support for a dying industry and a symbol of his heritage. Above is a segment produced on Conde Nast’s Style Web site that says it all.
Unlike Talese, I’m a harried dresser. Though I did make an effort on my grooming this week, I wound up with my shirttails sticking out of my pants by the end of a long day in the newsroom yesterday.
But I’m committed in spirit if not execution. Watch out, Zoning Board members! I just may dust off that tiara next week.
I once read an interview with Talese in which he talked about how difficult and painful he found to be the actual act of writing.
It’s something common to many writers, the demon on your shoulder whispering words of doubt and scorn in your ear as you search for the right words.
That someone who experiences the problem to the degree Talese apparently does could overcome it to turn out such a remarkable body of work I found to be truly admirable.
Comment by Tom Mellana — September 11th, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
Yes, I believe he once said that writing was like passing a kidney stone. I suppose that’s partly why it takes him so long. Thy Neighbor’s Wife took almost a decade to write. He is currently at work on a book on his marriage.
It’s good to see that he’s more visible these days, with a recent piece for the Times and the republishing of Thy Neighbor’s Wife and Honor Thy Father.
I dug around and found this Paris Review interview–http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/5925.
Not sure if this what you read, Tom, but I love this part:
All the other reporters of my generation would come back from an assignment and be done with their piece in a half hour. For the rest of the afternoon they’d be reading books or playing cards or drinking coffee in the cafeteria, and I was always very much alone. I didn’t carry on conversations during those hours. I just wanted to make my article perfect, or as good as I could get it. So I rewrote and rewrote, feeling that I needed every minute of the working day to improve my work. I did this because I didn’t believe that it was just journalism, thrown away the next day with the trash. I always had a sense of tomorrow. I never turned in anything more than two minutes before deadline. It was never easy, I felt I had only one chance. I was working for the paper of record, and I believed that what I was doing was going to be part of a permanent history.
It had better be good too, because my name was on it. I’ve always thought that. I think this came from watching my father work on suits. I was impressed by how carefully he would sew, and he never made much money, but I thought he was the real thing. His name was on those suits—the buttons couldn’t fall off tomorrow. They had to look great, had to fit well, and had to last. His business wasn’t profitable, but from him I learned that I wanted to be a craftsman.
Comment by Elizabeth Kim — September 12th, 2009 @ 9:15 am
I’m not sure if that’s the exact interview I remember, but some of the ideas are the same. I remember him talking about the shirt boards — what a bizarre system. But I love how he describes how he dresses and changes for work. Says everything about his respect for the job.
Comment by Tom Mellana — September 14th, 2009 @ 1:15 pm