Fame and Obscurity: A Book about New York, a Bridge, and Celebrities on the Edge . . .

by Gay Talese

Book Overview

"Fascinating . . . Poignant." The Wall Street Journal

In this extraordinary work of insight and interviews, bestselling author Gay Talese shares with us the lives of those we don't know and those we might wish we did: Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Manhattan mobsters, Bowery bums, and many others -- fascinating men and women who define our country's spirit and lead us to an understanding of ourselves as a nation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034546723X
• ISBN13: 9780345467232
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The best you can read.

Non fiction literature is a USA product, at the most it comes fron the anglosaxon culture. That is why we can say that Gay Talese is The non fiction writer par excellence. The best there is. Yes, there might be better known non fiction writers "names", but no one has a cleaner, precise more efficient prose than Gay Talese. By far he is the best. If one pay attention to the structure and the language of his works you unerstand at least three things: in literature the theme IS NOT the most important part, also we can understand how non fiction most be written and the importance that these fourth genre has nowadays. Pure fiction works seems to be declining in front of non fiction. Except storys out of these world (Avatar, Harry Potter, et al). Maybe we have had enough fiction, after all real life has proven that the best storys are next door and the best characters are walking in the neighbourhood. Gay Talese's works are an impeccable argument. Yes, there is also Mailer, Wolfe, Krakauer, Didion...

Fantastic portraits of DiMaggio, Sinatra, etc.

I say 4 stars only because of the datedness of some of the material. But the pieces on Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio in this book (both written in 1966) are brilliant and incisive portrayals of a time and states of mind (and of icons in an age when celebrity was in some ways larger than life than it is today and in some ways refreshingly not) that are both long gone.