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Thy Neighbor's Wife
by
Gay Talese
"Engrossing and provocative." Library Journal
Bestselling author Gay Talese's exploration into the hidden and changing sex lives of Americans from all walks of life shocked the world when it was first published in 1981. Now considered a classic, this fascinating personal oddysey and revealing public reflection on American sexuality changed the way Americans looked at themse...more
Bestselling author Gay Talese's exploration into the hidden and changing sex lives of Americans from all walks of life shocked the world when it was first published in 1981. Now considered a classic, this fascinating personal oddysey and revealing public reflection on American sexuality changed the way Americans looked at themse...more
Paperback, 480 pages
Published
March 1st 1995
by Ivy Books
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I'm not going to lie at the outset and say I picked up this book because it's a classic. I could, because it is. Gay Talese was one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Thy Neighbor's Wife combines the scope and detail of a Tom Wolfe epic with the vivid scene recreations of a Truman Capote and filters them through the Marquis de Sade.
But that's not why I read it.
In the internet era, porn is cheap and easy. I wanted a challenge. I wanted my smut done up right, by a literary...more
But that's not why I read it.
In the internet era, porn is cheap and easy. I wanted a challenge. I wanted my smut done up right, by a literary...more
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I first read this as a teenage boy when sex seemed so far away as to exist in another world all together. It made me want to be an adult, if only so I could wifeswap and hit the orgy communes. Always, by the time my manhood dropped, such things were wayyyyy in the past. Ultimately, this book is a time piece documenting the various social experiments that in the seventies were coming to a---um---climax (sorry). The Hugh Hefner material should be reread by anyone who doesn't remember the PLAYBOY f...more
There are only a couple of things that you need to be a fan of this book: 1) Be interested in topics such as the Kinsey Report and other mid-20th century (honest) explorations of sexual dynamics 2) Like the style of New Journalism and/or long-form magazine articles and 3) Be sufficiently intrigued by communes and other out-of-the box experiments in sexual freedom.
Each chapter of the book focuses on a different individual who was either strongly caught up in or directly contributed t...more
Each chapter of the book focuses on a different individual who was either strongly caught up in or directly contributed t...more
A couple of my friends read this book and enjoyed it and, after reading Sex at Dawn recently, which provides an evolutionary psychology based argument against monogamy, I became interested in reading this book chronicling American adventures in sexual nonconformity during the so-called sexual revolution. Talese has that new journalism style which will be very familiar for those who have read some of his contemporaries, such as Studs Terkel and Joan Didion. His writing style kind of floats from o...more
"Thy Neighbor's Wife" is an incredibly well written, engaging piece of journalism that explores the changing sexual values of American culture. From early explorations of free-love communities in 19th century New York State to the growth and acceptance of pornography with the mainstream success of Playboy magazine, the book provides an interesting perspective on a changing landscape and the people (Hefner, Al Goldstein, etc.)who were on the front lines of the legal and social battle. ...more
I recently read Talese's history of and report on the sexual revolution. As I recall, this book created quite a stir when it was published; I didn't read it then, and coming upon it now, decades after it was written, what strikes me most is the distance and dispassion with which Talese examines such things as the creation of "Playboy" magazine, wife-swapping, and swinging. Letting the facts speak for themselves, he paints a portrait of a "revolution" which empowers men to exp...more
In this overly long tome, Talese lays bare the changes in American sexual mores from its earliest history into the 1970s. In a tight journalistic style he presents a factual tell-all which focuses on the rise and fall of Hugh Hefner's Playboy enterprises, the growth of pornography, free love communes, massage parlors and the numerous supreme court cases arising from all this free living and publishing. The author embeds himself in his topic and overall presents the reader with a long walk throu...more
Occasionally engaging, occasionally sleazy, and occasionally just boring. When he's at his best, Talese is a fine journalist, digging deep and dredging up mile-long backstories about even the most minor characters who play roles of consequence. When he's not so hot, however, he plays to sensationalism, writes like a dimestore paperback scribbler, and slops on far too much prurient detail than necessary. Still, he kept me interested enough to bother winding my way through all 600 pages. All in al...more
A terrific primer on America's evolving prudery and promiscuity during the first half of the 20th century. Talese's treatment of the legal aspects of the sexual revolution would be utterly riveting even without the salacious material at hand. He elevates even minor characters--lawyers, ex-spouses, secretaries--to fully developed protagonists, each with a history and story. What emerges is a sprawling landscape of people and beliefs that are textured, subtle and entirely credible.
Tha...more
Tha...more
I selected this book because I enjoyed so much Gay Talese "Unto Thy Sons" - both the writing and the story. It turned out this book about the changes in the sexual mores of the 1950s and 1960s wasn't as fascinating as "Unto Thy Sons" but since this was the period when I was young it held a lot of interest for me. The book traces some historical roots e.g. Oneida (wow!) and has a lot of information about Hefner and the rise of Playboy. It would be interesting to have the op...more
After reading the interview in The Paris Review I was extremely curious to read this book. It was a fun, and educational read. One thing that occurred to me was that the same justification for the sexual and relationship explorations of some of the people resembled the kind of justification for LSD experimentation around the same time. There were groundbreaking pioneers who had a strong intellectual basis for their pursuits, but at the same time, many of the "explorers" were really jus...more
this book landed in my library as part of several boxes of books that a retired oil man and journalist (Clete Jones) wanted to get rid of. At first I thought this book was fiction, as it opened with with the story of a teenaged boy fantisizing over nude pictures in an "art" magazine. But as facts and figures were revealed, I began to realize that this was a nonfiction study of the sex industry in this country. Talese, whom I knew as the author of a realistic book about the Mafia, tak...more
I found a copy in a used bookstore over the weekend and couldn't pass it up at only $3. It was worth that and more, although the naked woman on the front of this particular edition (2009 reprint) made it somewhat funny to read on the crowded El ride home. My first introduction to Talese was his 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra in Esquire and I'm now enamored of his journalistic style.
On the one hand, the understated prose works in the author's favor, as the story moves effortlessly from one time and place to another. On the other hand, I was starving for memorable sentences and brilliant phrasing -- a little more would have gone a long way. Ultimately, however, I feel rewarded with vast new swaths of information, which is pretty good too.
Fuck this book was good. It concerns the postwar sex lives of ordinary Americans interspersed with the ordinary lives of post war sex peddlers (Hugh Hefner gets his heart broken a lot). It took him 9 years to accomplish and it ends just seconds before the AIDS crisis. It also makes you completely understand where that went so wrong.
Scrupulously journalistic and wary of sensationalism (sometimes to the point of being a bit dry), Thy Neighbor's Wife is a fascinating study of people caught up in (or in some cases, driving) the sexual revolution. Talese caught a lot of flak for it when it was published. It's tame by today's standards, but still entertaining.
Wading through the history of sex, censorship, and religious cults in America, Talese is hands down the best journalist I've ever read. Seminal piece for Esquire on Frank Sinatra has become a template for "how to write about someone without interviewing them."
Crônica do jornalista literário Gay Talese sobre a a permissividade, o liberalismo sexual que marcou as décadas de 60/70 nos Estados Unidos. Usa como pano de fundo o surgimento da Playboy americana e a história de seu idealizador, Hugh Hefner e sua vida libertina.
Regardless of how you feel about Talese's research methods in obtaining the sordidly detailed stories and information in this book, "Thy Neighbor's Wife" is an amazing piece of journalism. Get the 2009 edition with updates; you won't be sorry.
It wasn't until the end of the book that I realized that the author was more than merely a journalist -- he had indeed participated first hand in at least one of the communities he wrote about. The interesting thing to me is that despite that, he is able to write a narrative that still isn't sure whether all of this is a good idea. Some vestigial literary modesty perhaps?
This was rather interesting to read for someone who wasn't even alive in the 1960's or 70's before the advent ...more
This was rather interesting to read for someone who wasn't even alive in the 1960's or 70's before the advent ...more
Fascinating. Very interesting format for a non-fiction book about the sexual revolution, there were times when it felt more like a novel than anything. Though it's not really, the book feels oddly personal.
Again, I read this book some time ago, and believe it deserves a re-read. I recall it really made an impack on me. I always like Gay Talese's writing.
this book wasn't keeping my interest, i got to page 87...i guess to many facts from the 1800's
The must-read book for people who want to read about sex.
A pornografia salva casamentos e diminui a violência provocada pelo excesso de testosterona no mundo. "A Mulher do Próximo" (tÃtulo em português) destrincha de forma deliciosa o crescimento da indústria pornô nos EUA. O nascimento de revistas importantes, como a Playboy e a Hustler; e os embates travados por estudiosos como o biólogo Alfred Kinsey, são apenas alguns dos temas abordados na publicação. Gay Talese faz um verdadeiro apanhado antropológico do sexo, de sua importância na soc...more
A look at sex in America.
Reading this book was, in a way, life changing. The subject matter is what might typically be considered unseemly by most people -- sex, pornography, the evolving definition of obscenity in 20th century America, free-love communities, open-relationships, swingers -- but it's all handled with such deft journalistic flare that one doesn't feel like a perv for reading it and becoming thoroughly engrossed. This book is an education. Absolutely fascinating and brilliantly stitched together.
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Gay Talese is one interesting author ... He's the kind of author you want to have drinks with because you have no idea what is going on in his brain. He writes like a journalist ... I can see why this book was controversial back in the day. It is very well researched ... Especially his work on Hugh Hefner. Talese took some risks ... and because he did, I feel like I have learned a lot about a topic I really didn't care much about. Bravo!
Long book. Took me several times to get through it. The judicial discussions get a little boring for me. 9 years seems like a long time to research for a book and I don't see what the addition about the author has to do with the book. It seems like he's trying to justify what he did. Just stand up for your book and what you believe in.
This is a survey of (hetero-)sexual mores in America between 1945 and like 1975 (published in 1980). All the heavy hitters (Hugh Hefner, Al Goldstein of Screw) are profiled in-depth, plus a few more whose noteriety has been lost to time.
The ending is like something out of Gatsby. Highly recommended.
The ending is like something out of Gatsby. Highly recommended.
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Gay Talese is an American author. He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism or "new nonfiction reportage", also known as New Journalism. His most famous articles are about Joe DiMaggio, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
More about Gay Talese...
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