Since October, I’ve stockpiled book after book written by former New York Times journalist and acclaimed author Gay Talese, my collection spilling over shelves, coffee tables, and making its way into previously-unseen crevices of my apartment. My reading list got even bigger on Dec. 4th, when the then 92 year-old released a new book of collected works, “A Town Without Time: Gay Talese’s New York.”
Talese is an American writer best known as one of the pioneers of the “New Journalism” movement of the 1960s and 70s, along with Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe. In literary circles, Talese stands as a giant. His fedora-fitted silhouette stands as tall as Manhattan’s skyscrapers on the cover of “A Town Without Time,” and for good reason. Talese’s writing on New York City is the stuff of legend, and his latest book offers readers an exclusive look at his New York-based pieces.
What makes Talese’s work so timeless is his boots-on-the-ground approach to journalism. He ventures into the lowliest parts of 1960s Manhattan as the book kicks off with the essay “New York Is a City of Things Unnoticed.” After that, he dons a hard hat and work boots and scales “The Bridge,” an entire book within the book. “The Bridge” gives readers an unprecedented look into the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (as it was incorrectly spelled until 2018) through the eyes of those unnoticed men who built the behemoth. It is undoubtedly the star of the show, even outshining Talese’s most famous work.
I had the honor of sitting with Mr. Talese at his Manhattan townhouse, where we spoke about his work. When asked about “The Bridge,” I was surprised to find out that it didn’t receive much attention upon its initial release in 1964.
“People didn’t want to read about the men who built it,” Talese said, “but it’s history. I was the only one there writing about it.” We can all be thankful that he did. “The Bridge” should go down as one of the most important books about New York ever written.
His famed in-depth picture of Frank Sinatra — a profile written without ever actually talking to Ol’ Blue Eyes — makes a guest appearance in part four. “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” has become a required reading in the art of the celebrity profile. Talese paints a portrait of the man and his music in such a way that the piece is considered the best article in Esquire history, still studied in journalism classes today.
Other standouts are: “The Kidnapping of Joe Bonanno,” where Talese brilliantly begins the story of Bonanno’s kidnapping from the perspective of a doorman who knows when to not pay attention; “The Kingdoms, the Powers, and the Glories of the New York Times,” originally published in 1966 and offering a glimpse into the beast that is The New York Times, which Talese eventually expanded into his first bestseller, “The Kingdom and the Power”; and finally, “Dr. Bartha’s Brownstone,” which tells the story of a man who blew up his Manhattan townhouse with himself inside to avoid giving it to his wife in a nasty divorce.
First published in 2023, the tale of Dr. Bartha is the most recent of Talese’s works to be included in “A Town Without Time,” while the oldest piece to be featured, “Journey into the Cat Jungle,” was published in The New York Times in 1957 — when Talese was 25.
“A Town Without Time” gives the reader exactly what its name suggests: New York City through the eyes of one of the men who knows it best. The book ties together a fantastic career spanning over sixty years with highlights that include bestselling books such as “Unto the Sons,” “The Kingdom and the Power,” and “Honor Thy Father.”
As Talese writes, “New York is a city of things unnoticed,” and yet, in a career as long as his, he still managed to be noticed. Talese is a man unto his own, and as I sit here reflecting on his life, his work, and his city, I am reminded of words sung by the subject of his most famous piece, Sinatra himself: “If I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere,
It’s up to you, New York, New York.”
