The men at the center
Talese, a chronicler of unsavory characters and unapproachable celebrities, specialized in teasing out complexities of character and has justly been ranked among the greats in an area in which he was a pioneer, literary journalism. Ironically, his reputation came briefly under siege following remarks he made April 1 during a panel discussion at Boston University’s College of Communication, demonstrating that appreciating complexity is not social media’s strong suit.
That day, poet Verandah Porche asked him what women writers most inspired him. Talese, 84, answered directly. According to a New York Times account, he said, “I would think, of my generation, none.” Perhaps sensing the delicate ground upon which he was treading, Talese offered an explanation. When he was young and pursuing long-form journalism, women writers “tended not to do that. . . . Educated women, writerly women, don’t want to, or do not feel comfortable dealing with strangers or people that I’m attracted to, sort of the offbeat characters.”
By the time he had returned home to New York, Talese, who according to the Times does not have a cellphone and “has remained aloof from social media,’’ was in the center of a Twitter storm. Many took his words as disrespecting women writers, and pronounced him sexist and out of touch. One called him “a case study in the deep thread of chauvinism that still runs through journalism.” New Yorker writer Susan Orlean tweeted a litany of great women writers of recent decades, adding, “I’m just getting started here, folks.”
Talese told the Times he was misunderstood. He said he thought the question was about women who inspired him when he was starting out, when his journalism heroes were sportswriters like Red Smith. He said he admired and was influenced by women novelists then, but “when I was in my formative years, there were no women in journalism who inspired me.”
But Talese had already suffered a thousand Twitter cuts. One came from The New Yorker’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, who Tweeted: “It is inevitable: Your icons will always disappoint you.”
Well, perhaps. But in reflecting on the search for truth about people, it’s worth recalling that Talese spent three months following the iconic Sinatra for his Esquire profile. Even after all that time, the story suggested that as much as the writer came to know, there was more to glean, and much unknowable, about his famously guarded subject.
Talese was recently mocked for brief remarks after a long life with a large body of work. Icons may indeed disappoint, but instant critics and their readers should consider the thin waters of Twitter’s 140 characters. Snap judgments were never easier to share, which makes reserving judgment never more advisable.