Gay Talese and the dark side of America
Why The Voyeur’s Motel’s tales about a forgotten underbelly ruffled feathers in literary circles
American writer Gay Talese’s reputation as a literary journalist is immense; his 1966 article “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” is held up as a shining example of the form. And yet, the uproar that has preceded his new book, The Voyeur’s Motel, is deafening. At least he’s used to defending his work.
When Talese wrote Honor Thy Father (1971), about the inner workings of the Mob, his credit card got cancelled: “I was taking the Mafia to lunch and dinner. I wasn’t going to let them pick up any cheques,” the 84-year-old writer said in a phone interview late last month from his Manhattan home.
“Someone in authority thought I was in on the take.”
When he published Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1981), about America’s shifting mores and the sex trade, “the parents of classmates of my daughters were saying, ‘What a disgusting father he is . . . he’s using his research as an excuse to get laid.’ ”
With The Voyeur’s Motel, he’s been accused of enabling and participating in crimes, and relying on a source he himself has called “totally dishonourable.” Two days after our conversation, when the Washington Post pointed out to him serious factual discrepancies in that source’s tale, he even briefly disavowed his own book.
The titular voyeur, Gerald Foos, bought a motel on the outskirts of Denver, Colo., in the 1960s and spied on people having sex through specially made fake ventilation grilles. Talese, who had made a career out of reporting about the lives of people he calls “the unnoticed, the unobserved or the unwritten about,” was intrigued when Foos invited him in 1980 to participate in his clandestine operation — provided he agree not to write about it without Foos’ consent. He did both.
“I’m not exactly an altar boy,” Talese said. “I’m on the wrong side with this book.”
He visited Foos’ motel just that once and, together, they watched a couple have oral sex.
In 2013, Foos, having sold his motel (and another he used for the same purpose), finally decided to let Talese publish, giving him access to decades of his diaries, which Talese relies on in the book.
They paint a sordid picture. Even Talese seems surprised that Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks bought the movie rights (for a reported $1million U.S.): “Spielberg, Mr. America-and-apple-pie, how the hell can he cast anybody to play this guy?”
Various publications attacked Talese when an excerpted version was published in the New Yorker in April, claiming his and Foos’ continued correspondence enabled the voyeur’s crimes, and that excerpting Foos’ diaries gives him a platform.
“If I had access to Hitler, I would have interviewed him,” Talese said. “I’m against censorship. In order to have a free society, we cannot determine what is worthy of being expunged.”
Throughout his book, Talese questions his own participation and his decision not to report Foos when the voyeur wrote him that he witnessed a murder but failed to give the police its details. However, when Foos agreed to go on the record, Talese couldn’t find any evidence the murder had actually taken place. He assured himself Foos had simply gotten the dates wrong. “Why would he make it up? All the while, he was worried about (being found) negligent. That’s most likely where he would get himself arrested.”
Digging into property records, Talese discovered that, while the voyeur’s diaries start in1966, he didn’t buy the motel until 1969. Talese said that nonetheless, he generally trusted the diaries, which are liberally excerpted in the book — and for which Foos was paid.
“I don’t know any writer that has the imagination to make up all (that) stuff. How he would know about dogs pooping in (his hotel rooms) or some of the things about have never been written about, like men pissing in sinks?”
But when the Washington Post informed him that Foos had sold the motel in 1980 and didn’t have access to it until he repossessed it in 1988, Talese was aghast and exclaimed, “How dare I promote ( The Voyeur’s Motel) when its credibility is down the toilet?” Subsequently, he recanted.
Reached by email, Morgan Entrekin, Talese’s publisher at Grove Atlantic, states that while later editions may add footnotes or “correct errors of fact,” he stands by the book. “It is made very clear to the reader that Foos may not be totally reliable . . . we are not concerned about Gay’s credibility.”
Entrekin calls The Voyeur’s Motel a “fascinating story about the hidden underbelly of the American heartland, and the changing sexual and social mores over the last half of the 20th century.” But can we take anything Foos has written, and Talese has glossed, at face value?
And beyond this, does Foos have anything worthwhile to offer us? Talese cites the under-reported things Foos describes in his diaries, including the hidden costs of the Vietnam War (Foos details the lovemaking of crippled ex-soldiers) and the awful way his guests treated each other — and his property — when they assumed no one else was looking.
“I think Donald Trump is more American than America wants to accept,” Talese said. “Obama presents us very nicely because he’s such an exceptionally fine person, but our nation is not a place of nice people. Vogue magazine doesn’t present that. (Foos) is really a critic.”