The Voyeur's Motel

By Gay Talese

From Gay Talese, a remarkable new work of reportage more than thirty years in the making.

On January 7, 1980, in the run-up to the publication of Thy Neighbor's Wife, Gay Talese received an anonymous letter from a man in Colorado. 'Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America,' the letter began, 'I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.' The man went on to tell Talese a remarkable, shocking secret, so compelling that Talese travelled to Colorado to verify it in person. But because the letter-writer insisted on remaining anonymous, Talese filed his reporting away, certain the story would remain untold.

Over the next thirty-five years, the man occasionally reached out to Talese to fill him in on the latest developments in his life, but he continued to insist on anonymity. Finally, after thirty-five years, he's ready to go public.

In the tradition of Thy Neighbor's Wife, Talese's landmark, best-selling exploration of the sexual revolution in America, this will be a provocative, eye-opening and much-talked-about book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Jul 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781611859546

Gay Talese

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, in New York City. They have two daughters, Pamela and Catherine.

Reviews for The Voyeur's Motel

[basilisksam_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've heard of Gay Talese by reputation but this is the first time I've read one of his books. I found the book hard going mainly because I didn't believe it to be true. A voyeur sets up a survellance system in his motel and the first three observations described in the book are of a good looking couple, a threesome and a pair of lesbians. OK this could be due to the selectivity of the author but they just sound like someone's fantasies and they become boring very quickly.It's a pity because some of the themes of this book are really interesting and worth discussing. Firstly there are the trends observed over the decades described in the book such as changes in attitudes, not just to sex but also to political and personal changes in behaviour and attitudes. These are reflected in the book but usually in a rather superficial manner. More significantly there is a lot to be said about personal morality and expecially about how this kind of personal voyeurism has been replaced by state surveillance of almost every aspect of our lives. These issues are discussed but mainly towards the end of the book and in far too little detail. For me the book, whether the events are true or not, would have been much more interesting if it had concentrated on these larger issues and left out the interminable descriptions of sexual activities which are mostly indistinguishable from a million other sexual fantasies.

[mhartford_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Gerald Foos was not at all an interesting voyeur: banal at best, unreflective, sanctimonious, and ultimately rather dull. He hardly warranted a New Yorker article, much less a whole book, about his tawdry exploits.