Gay Talese
Related: American literature - journalism
Thy Neighbor's Wife (1980) - Gay Talese
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Biography
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay Talese [Nov 2006]
Thy Neighbor's Wife (1980) - Gay Talese
One of the truisms of literary nonfiction is that it often takes twenty years or more for a book to be read the way the author intends. This may be true also of "Thy Neighbor's Wife" (1980), Talese's greatest financial success and sole critical failure. In one sense Talese was simply following his insatiable curiosity the evening in 1971 when he investigated a neon sign flashing "Live Nude Models" on the third floor of a building within the shadows of Bloomingdale's. In another sense, something more personal lay behind his exploration of the world of sexual license. Just as the Mafia represented a denied and forbidden subject to Talese as a boy, sexuality was, if possible, an even more repressed and whispered reality to the proper immigrant's son. By associating for the next five years with "the obscene people of America," as Talese has wittily characterized his research, he was defying the sexual repressions of his parents, his parish, and his community. That he should suffer mightily for this act of defiance, both in his hometown press and in reviews at large, seems, perhaps, inevitable.
Talese believed the story of changing sexual mores in America was the biggest story of his time, and he has described "Thy Neighbor's Wife" as a "breakthrough" book for him which includes some of his best writing. The language across the book's twenty-five chapters is exceptional, particularly alliterative passages and delicate descriptions of erotic acts. The volume also represents breakthroughs for Talese in a number of respects. "Thy Neighbor's Wife" embraces both a larger subject and a greater historical period than either "The Kingdom and the Power" (which centers on a specific newspaper from its founding in 1851 through 1968) or "Honor Thy Father" (which focuses ona specific family from approximately 1890 to 1971). "Thy Neighbor's Wife" treats the vastly wider subject of sex and censorship in America from the Puritans to l980.
As in the fiction of Henry James, settings represent psychological states. The book opens in Chicago, a city which embodies for Talese the religious, political, and sexual rigidity that is the formative experience of so many of the sons in the work. The movement of many of these sons away from Chicago and primarily to Los Angeles and the utopian Sandstone Community suggests a journey from repression to freedom. The fact that Harold Rubin, whose story opens the volume, never escapes Chicago and that the Sandstone "utopia" does not survive, however, suggests the power of formative, restrictive forces. This point is underscored by the book's concluding setting, Ocean City, New Jersey, Talese's personal Chicago. Here, at the volume's end, is an additional artistic breakthrough: Talese's first effort to depict himself as a character in his work.
Perhaps the most important breakthrough in this manifoldly ambitious "Thy Neighbor's Wife", however, is the change in the filial stance of the younger generation. Whereas in his previous works Talese had created poignant and ambiguous tragedies of sons failing to live up to the expectations and ideals of their fathers-causing them painful introspection- "Thy Neighbor's Wife" offers repeated portraits of sons and daughters not seeking to honor their fathers, but to defy them. The book might be subtitled "Cameos of Defiance." At least twenty sons and sixteen daughters are depicted in the volume, and all in the posture of unrepentant rebellion. The important place "Thy Neighbor's Wife" holds in Talese's canon, therefore, is as the first major work in which sons move from submission to defiance-and even toy with the possibility of domination. Talese, in fact, chooses to end this book with himself, not as a failure, not as a success, but as a son returning home to the insular island of Ocean City, standing naked, defiantly eye to eye with the town fathers. "They were unabashed voyeurs looking at him," runs the final line, "and Talese looked back."
"Thy Neighbor's Wife" was an extraordinary financial success for Talese, marred only by the intensity of the critical thrashing the book also received. Talese was criticized for failing to include all aspects of sexuality, such as homosexuality, incest, venereal disease and contraception, and for giving women secondary status. Many reviewers were outraged at Talese's opening the doors of sexual privacy, at his hinting at the social benefits of the massage parlor, at his widely publicized participatory research methods-in fact, that he had dared to do what he had dared to do. More to the point, perhaps, were those reviewers noting the "joylessness" in a book that seemed to be about sexual freedom. Knowing the difficulty Talese experiences envisioning success (much less happiness) for his sons, readers should hardly find this surprising. What has not been said about the critical reaction to "Thy Neighbor's Wife" is that perhaps one reason the response was often so angry is because "Thy Neighbor's Wife" itself is a book of unrelenting defiance. The volume's tone invites confrontation. Rarely, as in his earlier works, does Talese present the pain and introspection of his aspiring sons (and daughters) that heretofore had created reader sympathy. Instead, the children, and especially Talese, come eye to eye with their fathers. They dare equality, and even supremacy.
The first words of "Thy Neighbor's Wife" are Talese's opening "Note to the Reader," stressing that "The names of the people in this book are real, and the scenes and events described on the following pages actually happened." Nevertheless, critics have not yet adequately acknowledged the remarkable reporting showcased in the volume. "Thy Neighbor Wife" opens with a scene of masturbation depicted in elaborate detail as it actually happened. It presents scenes of marital infidelity, using (with permission) the actual names of the participants. That Talese's method of returning again and again to his sources created the trust that made this detailed reporting possible is perhaps his strongest legacy to other writers. It implies that there may be no subject beyond the bounds of human communication. --www.gaytalese.com/biographyeight.html
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