Gay Talese Is Back

The dandiest man in town is getting a new look. Gay Talese’s classic books Thy Neighbor’s Wife and Honor Thy Father are coming back into print, with new afterwords from Talese. In his afterword for Honor Thy Father, he explains the methodology of his research—how he came to live mob consigliere Bill Bonanno, and how he won his cooperation. And Talese updates Thy Neighbor’s Wife with new material on Al Goldstein and Hugh Hefner—which includes new commentary on how the sex industry has changed in the era of AIDS and the Internet. For his next project, however, Talese is aiming a little closer to home: He’ll write about his 50-year marriage with book editor Nan Talese.