PROGRAM

Roosevelt House is pleased to present a rare opportunity to hear legendary journalist, and nattiest neighbor, Gay Talese discussing his new book, A Town Without Time: Gay Talese’s New York. With the wit, elegance, and depth of insight that has characterized his work for over six decades, A Town Without Time collects Talese’s greatest reporting on New York City. He will be in conversation with New York Times columnist and author Dan Barry.

Making intelligible the city’s vibrant beating pulse, capturing the charming, the eccentric, and the overlooked, Talese’s New York reporting showcases a master of the form at his finest. Whether prowling the night streets to discover the social hierarchy of alley cats, or uncovering the triumph and terror of building the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, or plunging into the hidden, sordid world of a recently blown-up apartment building, Talese excavates the city around him with a journalist’s keen eye and an artist’s flair—crafting delightful, profound, indelible portraits of the people who live here. Included among them are the stories of daring bridge builders, disappearing gangsters, intrepid Vogue editors, and unassuming doormen who’ve seen too much—set in star-studded salons at George Plimpton’s apartment, in an electric studio session with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga recording their debut, and in the tense newsroom of a still burgeoning New York Times.

Spanning the 1950s to today, the 14 pieces in this collection are a time capsule of what New York once was, and still is—proving that, even as the city changes, Talese’s view of it remains as timeless as ever.

Gay Talese was credited by Tom Wolfe with the creation of an inventive form of nonfiction writing called “The New Journalism.” He spent his early career at the New York Times, then moved to Esquire, where he produced some of the most celebrated magazine pieces ever written, including “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” which Vanity Fair has called “the greatest literary-nonfiction story of the twentieth century.” His books include The Kingdom and the Power; Honor Thy Father; Thy Neighbor’s Wife; Unto the Sons; and The Voyeur’s Motel. Born in Ocean City, New Jersey, in 1932, Talese lives with his wife, Nan, on the Upper East Side.

Dan Barry is a reporter and columnist for the New York Times. He is the editor of the Library of America anthology Jimmy Breslin: Essential Writings, which he appeared at Roosevelt House to discuss as The 2024 Jack Newfield Lecturer. He is the author of This Land: America, Lost and Found; Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball’s Longest Game; The Boys in the Bunkhouse: Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland; City Lights, a collection of his “About New York” columns; and Pull Me Up: A Memoir. He has been nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice and, as a member of the The Providence Journal investigative team, shared a George Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize.