American writer, often cited as one of the founders of the 1960s “New Journalism,” a label he resists. His best sellers include “The Kingdom and the Power,” 1969, “Honor Thy Father,” 1971, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” 1980 and “Unto the Sons,” 1992, a 635-page historical saga of his family’s migration from Italy to America.
The son of isolated Italian Catholics, Talese grew up in Ocean City, NJ with his sister Marian. He was ostracized as a Catholic in a predominantly Methodist area, and as an Italian, since anyone who was Catholic was apt to be Irish. His father, Joseph, was a southern Italian tailor who came to America in 1922, and his mother, Catherine DePaolo, was a buyer for a Brooklyn department store.
Never an outstanding student in grade and high school, Talese was always a walking mannequin, reflecting his immigrant father’s tailoring skills. His writing ability surfaced in high school. He attended the University of Alabama, after having been rejected by dozens of colleges in New Jersey and the surrounding states. He has said that his four years there were among the happiest of his life, and he flourished for the first time as a student.
After college, he joined the Army. Two years later, he began his career at the New York Times in 1959, working as a feature writer. He left in 1965, but soon became famous for the “New Journalism,” with magazine portraits of Frank Sinatra, Joe Dimaggio and heavyweight Joe Louis.
“Thy Neighbor’s Wife” his sexual magnum opus published in 1980, took over seven years to write. It caused considerable backlash with the gossip about his infidelities that strained his marriage and embarrassed his children. Among other things, it reflected Talese’s experience at Sandstone, an experimental nudist colony in California. To redeem his reputation as a master of literary nonfiction, he started writing a biography of Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, but abandoned the project in March 1982.
Talese has unusual work habits, including composing his work dressed in one of his three-piece $2,000 custom-made suits, with a silk paisley handkerchief draped from the breast pocket. He writes everything in longhand on yellow pads, then copies the work at his electric typewriter. He works in his basement, with no phones or television. He rewrites and arranges his typewritten pages on a wall where he studies them with binoculars.
Friends introduced him to his wife Nan in 1957. They were married in Rome two years later, 6/10/1959. Nan, of Irish-Catholic descent, is an editor at Doubleday and edits all of Gay’s work. They have two daughters, Pamela in 1965 and Catherine in 1968, who became a photographer.
He lives in New York City off Park Avenue where he works on a sequel to “Unto the Sons” along with another book, untitled as yet.
Link to Wikipedia biography