Response to the Gay Talese Reader

Gay Talese Response
Charlotte Atchley
I found Gay Talese’s profiles insightful and easy to read. I think the beauty of his method is he writes these profiles in the most intimate way, by taking his readers through a day in the life of his subject. What is more intimate than the daily routines of our most famous athletes, entertainers and publications—what they eat, drink, who they see and talk to.
Talese doesn’t restrict himself to the monotonous events of a day, however. He uses those moments as jumping off points for deeper revelations and explorations into a his subject’s character and past, much in the same way that our minds will notice a friend’s red car and take us back to the last time we saw that friend’s car and the events that surrounded that sighting. This much more readable form of stream-of-consciousness writing draws us in because it’s so natural. It’s how our brains function, and Talese uses it to weave background and depth into present, moving events.
Talese’s choices in his presentation of a profile and the very subjects he writes about are surprising. In New York is a City of Things Unnoticed, Talese writes a profile of a city that has appeared in hundreds of writings but never from this angle, that surprisingly reveals a fresh side to the city’s character. Talese writes about the down and out, the stars who are fading—Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson instead of profiling Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. By not following who and what is hot at the moment, Talese creates a profile so much more interesting and surprising than just another Mickey Mantle profile.