Gay Talese's A Writer's Life Revisited.
It was hard to get a make on Gay Talese's A Writer’s Life (Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2006, 430 pages, $26 Random House Audio Books) when it first came out a few years ago, but now, in contemplative retrospect, it finds it literary niche.
(It must be) now available in paperback, and while the Chinese soccer heroine seemed a bit out of place a few years ago, the Bejing Olympics bring the topic back to the table, and in this perspective, it comes across much more appealing.
After exposing the Mafia in "Honor thy Father," mainstream media in "The Kingdom and the Power," American sexual morals in "Thy Neighbor's Wife" and his own family in "Unto the Sons," Ocean City’s native son purges his culinary soul in this literary moveable feast.
Talese didn't know if his next book should be a continuation of his reflection on his family history, the restaurant industry or Olympic soccer, about which he admits little interest. So this book is about all three. In searching for the spirit of a young Chinese soccer player, Talese is sidetracked into musing over fine wine and dinners at a succession of NYC restaurants, some of which occupied the same location.
Liu Ying is the young girl, a Chinese soccer player who misses a crucial overtime kick in a sudden death World Cup play off game, an event that Talese witnessed on TV while pondering his next assignment at his home in the Ocean City Gardens.
Talese was struck by the fact Liu Ying missed, and wondered what the repercussions would be at home, and what it was like to live and play soccer in China, questions that Talese carried back with him to his New York City apartment, and while dining out at various culinary establishments.
As Talese admits in this semi-tell-all auto-biography, his mother was all business when it came to the dress and tailor shop they operated on Asbury Avenue, where they lived upstairs but seldom ate at home. Unlike your traditional Italian kitchen with sauces on the stove all the time, Gay and his father often went out to eat at restaurants, which gave Gay a taste for such places.
Over the years, while he was dodging mobsters, reporting for the New York Times, stalking but failing to interview Frank Sinatra, hobnobbing with Hugh Hefner and driving around in his classic fire engine red TR-3 convertable, Talese was thinking about writing a book about the restaurant industry, and kept dubious notes in a special file, but never got around doing it. Well this is it, at least part of it is.
While he also spends time at "21," Elaines, Sardi's and other well known city joints, Talese seemed to always come back to 206 East 63rd Street. The Uptown scene must be located somewhat convenient to Talese's New York pad, because he patronized the place over a period of decades as it went through changes in ownership and styles - Le Premier, Gnolo, The Bisro Pascal, and giving him a place to hang his hat and draw on the evolution of one place.
Of course the owners of these semi-permenant places, Elaine Kaufman, Henri Soale, Sirio Maccioni, are all interesting people, as are the lesser known personalities who own and operate (not always the same person) seemingly popular restaurants, but evenually failed businesses.
While writing a book on the restaurant industry was a long-range project, he did take a six-figure advance for a follow up to his family history "Unto the Sons," but that was years overdue and he had taken up other interests, including the tragic Chinese soccer heroine Liu Ying. Talese wrote querries to some editors he thought would be interested in his perspective, but when there were no takers, he decided on a whim to fly to China and find out what became of Liu Ying.
Restaurants come and go, change names, motifs and menus, so what I want to know is what new restaurant now occupies the 206 E. 63rd St. where Talese often dined, and is it any good?
"Without contradictions, nothing would exist." - Mao
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