08/05/2006: "Gay Talese"

Just reading this interview of Gay Talese by Robert Birnbaum from The Morning News.

Birnbaum v. Gay Talese

A rowdy conversation with writer Gay Talese about his new memoir, Lorena Bobbitt's Hollywood agent, attending fights with James Baldwin, and a hundred other reports about the joys and pains of getting a story right.

Very Good;

Very Good Indeed!

In the interview he talks about the art of non-fiction
and refers to Truman Capote's article on Marlon Brando
which I read a while ago.

The Duke in His Domain
Marlon Brando, who was considered by many to be one of the greatest actors in American movie history, died on July 1st, at the age of eighty. Here, from 1957, is a long Profile of Brando by Truman Capote.

I have an affection for the work of Br Capote -
(& Hubert Selby Jr...)



and must re-read In Cold Blood

Now, I didn't know much about Robert Birnbaum
(except that he does frequent interviews for The Morning News)
before I went hunting.

Here's a Q&A

Many more author interviews on Identity Theory

But I did know a bit about Gay Talese

thanks to Esquire's 70th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL:

and his legendary article
Frank Sinatra has a Cold

It is no longer available on the Esquire site
and the Sinatra Archive seems to be down...
but we have a pdf here

I was particularly struck by this passage:

In nonfiction, which is what I am a practitioner of, you can write these kind of stories that are not novels, that are not plays, but are real. You don't have to fake the name. Use the name! You don't have to make anything up - because life is fantastic. Ordinary life is extraordinary. It is. You know this. It's just a matter of being able to see it, to see it and being able to write it.

Fits in nicely with my theory (James Joyce deserves some credit) that every single day is an Odyssey...


As a bonus, Parishioners,

here are Esquire's 70 Greatest Sentences

For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap-and-lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks.
Truman Capote, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," 1958

She is cute as a button, pretty as a picture, eminently fuckable, totally unavailable.
Mike Sager, "Beautiful," 1999

lerevdr on Sat 05-Aug-2006 @ 13:56 e.s.t [permalink]
[Care to comment on this article?]