QUESTION: What motivated you to let Gay Talese have
your story?
Bill Bonanno: Gay Talese was a very insistent correspondent
for The New York Times at the time.
The New York Times, he told me, doesn't have reporters,
they have correspondents. And he just
didn't give up. He was very tenacious. He hounded
me for about four or five months until I said
OK, you can have the story, provided that we have
an understanding: that you will get it a little bit
at a time whenever I can. I couldn't very well tell
him that at the time I was involved in a shooting
war in New York.
One of the stupider criticisms, amidst many legitimate ones, of George
W. Bush in this 2000 Presidential campaign is that he is merely following
in his Dad's footsteps; as if this was unusual? John McCain went
to the Naval Academy--his father and grandfather were admirals. Steve
Forbes runs Forbes magazine--here's a shocker for you, he wasn't the founder.
Al Gore was nicknamed Prince Albert because he was so patently aping his
old man's career. (Bradley is the exception here, thanks to the freak
gift of athletic ability). And, your intrepid correspondent, the
fifth of six consecutive Orrin Judds, attended the alma mater of three
of the four, went to law school like the third and, barring a strict prohibition
from my wife, would even now be attending seminary like the first and fourth.
This is what men do, we follow in our fathers footsteps. In Honor
Thy Father, Gay Talese offers a fascinating real-life account of what
happens when the family business turns out to be the Mafia.
Talese was still a beat writer for the New York Times in 1965
when he was sent to the federal courthouse in Manhattan to cover the arrest
of Bill Bonanno, an intelligent, affable young mobster who had been wanted
for questioning in the disappearance of his father, mob boss Joseph Bonanno.
Talese, himself of Italian descent, had long wondered what life was like
for real mafiosi. He approached Bill Bonanno, who was his own age
and was college educated (though he never finished) and asked him if he
would sit down for a series of interviews which would lead to a book on
growing up the son of a Don. Over the next five years, while Bonanno
dealt with the disappearance and reappearance of his father, fought his
way through a mob war (the Banana War) and ended up going to prison for
credit card fraud, Talese gained unprecedented access to Bonanno and family
and friends. The result is this fascinating novelistic account of
life inside the Mob, with a particular focus on how this bright, articulate,
modern man was drawn into his father's brutal and backwards business.
It all makes for riveting reading.
(Reviewed:07-Feb-00)
Grade: (A)
Websites:
Gay Talese Links:
-REVIEW: of The Gay Talese Reader (Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly)
-Gay Talese
(author's website)
-Encyclopaedia
Britannica: Your search: "gay talese"
-Creative
Nonfiction: Writers and Their Works
-ESSAY:
Where Are the Italian-American Novelists? (Gay Talese, NY Times Book
Review)
-ESSAY:
"When I Was 25" (Gay Talese, POV)
-REVIEW:
of THE SICILIAN By Mario Puzo (Gay Talese, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of MAYOR By Edward I. Koch with William Rauch (Gay Talese, NY
Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of LA MERICA: Images of Italian Greenhorn Experience. By Michael La Sorte
(Gay Talese, NY Times Book Review)
-INTERVIEW:
with Gay Talese (Glynnis Wilson , The Southerner: Willie Morris
Tribute)
-DISCUSSION:
The Sopranos: Art Imitating Art? including Talese (WNYC Radio)
-PROFILE:
From Ocean City 'Outsider' to Author Who Learned to Listen (SHIRLEY
HORNER, NY Times)
-ARTICLE:
Getting writing lessons from a master: Talese (Stephan Salisbury, The
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 10, 1999)
-ARTICLE:
PUBLISHING: GAY TALESE ON THY NEIGHBOR'S CAR (EDWIN McDOWELL, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Wilfrid Sheed: Everybody's Mafia, NY Review of Books
The American Mafia: Genesis
of a Legend by Joseph L. Albini
The Mafia Is Not an Equal
Opportunity Employer by Nicholas Gage
Honor Thy Father: The Inside
Book on the Mafia by Gay Talese
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
The Godfather directed by
Francis Ford Coppola
-REVIEW:
of Honor Thy Father (Gang Land)
-REVIEW:
Alexander Cockburn: Mr. P, Mrs. V, and Mr. T, NY Review if Books
Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay
Talese
-REVIEW:
of UNTO THE SONS By Gay Talese (William Murray, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of UNTO THE SONS By Gay Talese (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
starred review of The Best American Sports Writing of the Century.
Ed. by David Halberstam and Glenn Stout includes Talese's profile of DiMaggio
(ALA Booklist)
-ESSAY:
In Search of Italian American Writers (Fred Gardaphé)
-ESSAY:
on Talese USF MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING PROGRAM Literary Journalism
Class: Week 1 (Pat Soberanis)
-ESSAY:
Poet on a Fuzzy Toilet Seat Cover (R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., American
Spectator)
-ESSAY:
How Muhammad Ali Changed the Press (David Remnick, SportsJones Magazine)
-Polyamory-Related
Books: Poly Journalism: Journalistic works that discuss polyamory...
Thy Neighbor's Wife Gay Talese
-'Best
American Journalism' Top 100 (New York University school of journalism)
#43. Gay Talese Fame and
Obscurity: Portraits by Gay Talese Collected articles 1970
MAFIA:
-REVIEW:
Bonanno, Bill. Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story (Library Journal)
-INTERVIEW:
A Chat You Can't Refuse: Former Consigliere Bill Bonanno (TIME,
Transcript from May 11, 1999)
-Jerry Capeci's
Gang Land
NEW JOURNALISM
-REVIEW:
of IT WASN'T PRETTY, FOLKS, BUT DIDN'T WE HAVE FUN? Esquire in
the Sixties. By Carol Polsgrove (Timothy Foote, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Dwight Macdonald: Parajournalism, or Tom Wolfe & His Magic Writing
Machine
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake
Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe
-ESSAY:
When Fact Is Treated as Fiction (JAMES ATLAS, NY Times Book Review)
-ESSAY:
Stranger Than Fiction (JAMES ATLAS, NY Times Book Review)
-ARTICLE:
NONFICTION TECHNIQUES DEBATED ANEW (EDWIN McDOWELL, NY Times)
-Creative
Nonfiction: Writers and Their Works
Book-related and General Links:
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