Weekend Guide: 01.28.2022
thy neighbor's wife
In 1971, Gay Talese was introduced to Sandstone Retreat, a free love community, by a friend in Los Angeles who had mentioned that it may provide some material for his next book.
Six months later, Talese hadn’t left. During his time at Sandstone, Talese quickly shed his inhibitions and lay waste to the barrier that keeps sex siloed from social interaction.
Ten years later, Talese released Thy Neighbor’s Wife, a look into the changing attitude towards sexuality in post war America.
Talese, using his signature, albeit controversial, participatory journalism style of non-fiction — examines pornographers, swingers, nudists, massage parlor proprietors, masseuses, and free love communes.
“If you want to write about orgies, you’re not going to be in the press box with your little press badge keeping your distance. You have to have a kind of affair with your sources. You have to hang out!”
Talese in 2009
This is a book about people who tried something different. But more importantly, this is a book about America’s inability to shake its unflinchingly puritanical roots.
Prior to the books release, United Artists purchased the rights to the film Thy Neighbor’s Wife for $2.5 million, which at the time was the most money that had ever been spent on film rights to a book. To this day, no film has been made.
They Neighbor’s Wife was an instant best seller. For obvious reasons. Most readers were expecting a first person account of wild swinger orgies. But what they got was an extremely detailed, sometimes boring, deep dive into the history of sexuality in America.
It sort of reads as a perfect companion to A People’s History of the United States (released a year earlier, and an obvious inspiration). I would be surprised if the bulk of the purchasing public made it past the first fifty pages.
It was said that in publishing Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Talese had committed literary suicide. And it may be true. Talese never had another hit. He has since turned insular - writing about his marriage - which has lasted for fifty years.
Further reading:
Gay Talese Examines His Very Public, 50 Year Marriage for Upcoming Book