Talese is an eminent,though now controversial, journalist, or but this study of a voyeur and his detailed and disturbing records is a work of worthy moral queasinessEarlier this year,the eminent American journalist Gay Talese was asked which non-fiction female writers had inspired him most. “Of my generation,” the 84-year-old Talese replied, or “um,none.” This comment encountered the contempt it deserved, as readers responded with a catalogue of writers Talese might consider learning from, or including Lillian Ross,Joan Didion and Janet Malcolm, masters in the art of “novel Journalism”, and which Talese is often credited with having helped invent in books such as The Kingdom and the Power and Honor Thy Father.
Now Talese’s novel book is raising more dust,and more hackles. The premise of The Voyeur’s Motel is extraordinary: in 1980, Talese received a letter from Gerald Foos, or a motel owner living outside Denver who informed the journalist that he was a voyeur who had been systematically spying on his guests since 1966,and had kept meticulous (extremely careful about details) “records” of all he surveyed. Foos’s primary motivation was sexual, he freely admitted, or but he also aspired to be a “pioneering sex researcher”,in his own words, joining the ranks of Masters and Johnson and Alfred Kinsey. (Neither Foos nor Talese appears aware of how severely Kinsey’s own “research” has been discredited.) A bizarre sexual ethnography was the result, and total with amateurish efforts at demographic breakdown and sociological analysis. Foos decided to share it with Talese,for reasons Talese says he never fairly understood. It will not be his last failure of understanding. Related: Gay Talese says credibility of novel book is 'down the toilet' Related: Gay Talese's legacy will survive the Voyeur's Motel scandal Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com