Bartleby & Me – Reflections of an Old Scrivener by Gay Talese
Gay Talese was credited by author Tom Wolfe with the inventive form of nonfiction writing called “The New Journalism.” These are his memories of early days and goings on outside two of his most famous stories: Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and Dr. Bartha’s Brownstone. He’s an elegant writer, getting to the heart of things with direct language, yet never sounding as abrupt as, say, Hemingway. Adjectives arrive without decoration. Still, there’s a kind of poetry in his observations. Talese has never been mainstream in his choices. While everyone else fixates on the newsmaker, he looks around for an unnoticed everyman.
In 1938, days of newspaper office air chutes and conveyors, 21 year-old Gay Talese was earning $30 weekly as a copy boy at The New York Times. He describes the scenario like a Norman Rockwell Post cover. There were, he says, endless Bartlebys, scriveners behind horseshoe-shaped desks.
The young man’s first printed story (on the editorial page) was about The New York Times electrician responsible for lit headlines outside the building. Talese received no byline, but an extra $10 pay. “He was a kind of choreographer who created a chorus line of letters that shimmered and dazzled,” he wrote. Next (in the Travel Section) was a piece about the men who made their living pushing passengers up and down the Atlantic City boardwalk “in reed-covered, three wheeled rolling chairs.”
Talese served in the army (in Louisville, then Germany, “where I just missed Elvis Presley”), writing for camp newspapers after basic training. Demobilized, he was assigned to the only open job at the Times, the sports desk. Ernest Hemingway, John O’Hara, and Irwin Shaw had written about sports. For four years Talese chronicled minor characters in Major League settings – he’s an avid fan of baseball. 1959-1965, the journalist covered news by writing about non-newsworthy people. “I preferred not to write about celebrities because I knew from experience that few of them had respect for writers.”
The Sinatra story for which he’s famous among peers, was assigned by Esquire, a first stop after leaving the paper of note. (Talese made a deal that he would be allowed to finish writing about some obscure Times people first. )Ol’ Blue Eyes had just threatened to sue Walter Cronkite for implying he had mafia connections. He was seeing 20 year-old Mia Farrow. The writer’s first glimpse was in a Manhattan bar the crooner frequented. Following his rule to never take notes in a crowded venue, Talese adjourned to the men’s room where he took out a 7” x 3” sheet of the shirt cardboard he carried on which to write.
Sinatra’s people stipulated that Talese sign a release entitling him to read the article before being published. Esquire didn’t work that way. Impasse. At the bar, the entertainer and science fiction writer Harlen Ellison exchanged some potentially incendiary words about the source of the latter’s boots. The entourage, including a woman who trailed him with a case of wigs, a man who saved him from drowning, and bodyguards, is described as is Sinatra, vividly if from a distance.
Talese flew out to California where Sinatra was recording, showed up at the studio, and was told his subject was not feeling well. Once again, he observed behind the lines. “That’s a man with a cold,” the vocalist declared watching a video take, cutting the session short. He was then unavailable, ostensibly recovering in Palm Springs. Whenever Talese got within feet of him, he’d reintroduce himself deferentially. The interview had been agreed upon weeks ago. Hotel life was posh but the journalist was restless and increasingly fatalistic.
He managed to lunch with Nancy Sinatra and watched her recording session – she knew where dad’s bread was buttered. That night, he was reamed by a member of the inner circle for access without permission. Talese persisted turning up. “What could they do, offer someone $30,000 to break one of my legs?” Finally the great man recognized him. Hope stirred when he was invited to the Patterson/Ali fight in Las Vegas where Sinatra would be performing. The interview would never happen.
Photographer Dave Sutton told Talese, “In order to get to Sinatra the way you want, you have to be a friend. And if you’re going to be his friend, you’ll find you can’t write about him.” The article about everything and everyone in Sinatra’s mobile wake was an immense success.
In 2006, Dr. Nicholas Bartha set off an explosion that demolished his fourteen room brownstone on East 62nd Street and took his life. Talese did a deep dive into the Romanian immigrant’s history. Accusing him of being a bully, his trophy wife secured a divorce. The journalist tracks their relationship and the fallout after separation, describing it in detail. Bartha was alone three years before his death. “…he was so emotionally attached to his house that he could not, under any circumstances, abandon it…” The piece is cinematic.
Some may call the book slight, but Talese seems incapable of dashing off anything. He pays absolute attention, especially with peripherals.
Photos Courtesy of Harper Collinns
Bartleby & Me – Reflections of an Old Scrivener by Gay Talese
Mariner Books
