Undoubtedly creepy and unnerving but also an entirely compelling slice of seamy American life.
The disturbing private world of the sleaziest motel manager since Norman Bates.
The latest book by new journalism pioneer Talese (A Writer’s Life, 2006, etc.) is the story of the author's decadeslong correspondence with Colorado businessman Gerald Foos, an unashamed peeping Tom who spent years spying on clients at his roadside motel. From the attic over a room structurally fitted with a fake ceiling vent, Foos watched—and recorded, in a series of journals—the private lives of his guests, writing up (and often masturbating over) graphic accounts of the couplings of horny singles, adulterous professionals, threesomes, lesbians, widows with paid escorts, incestuous siblings, and men in costumes, among many others. He also saw lots of bored married couples watching TV. Foos views himself not just as a voyeur, but as a “pioneering sex researcher,” not unlike Kinsey, Masters, and Johnson—or perhaps Talese himself, whose 1980 Thy Neighbor’s Wife chronicled the sexual revolution from his perspective as both observer and participant. “Someone has to be delegated the responsibility to confront these tangible existences and tell other people about them,” Foos writes in one journal entry. “Herein is the intrinsic essence of the Voyeur.” Foos writes a functional, unfussy prose, which Talese both ably condenses and quotes at generous length. The character that emerges from this tightly woven narrative is oddly ambivalent. At some level, he's a little like Kyle MacLachlan in Blue Velvet, indulging this purely human desire to see what has always been hidden. But spying also fed Foos’ ego and allowed him to exert power over his guests, who became lab rats for both his obsessions and his power trips. Most disturbingly, he recalls how he once interceded in the life of a guest and inadvertently both caused and witnessed her murder. (The case, investigated at some length, remains shrouded in mystery.)
Undoubtedly creepy and unnerving but also an entirely compelling slice of seamy American life.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2581-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
A passionate plea for social justice and renewal, from the nationally known activist, preacher, and editor of Sojourners magazine. Drawing on his firsthand experience of inner-city life in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago and his visits to trouble spots such as Nicaragua, the Philippines, and South Africa, Wallis (The Call to Conversion, 1981) sets out his vision of a new politics, based on biblical principles, that incorporates both liberal social concern and conservative zeal for personal responsibility. He is at his best, however, when describing actual incidents and people. We meet Mrs. Mary Glover, a 60-year-old African-American woman at the Sojourners' Neighborhood Center, 20 blocks from the White House, who prays aloud each morning before the hungry arrive for food: ``Lord, we know that you'll be comin' through this line today. So help us to treat you well.'' We hear of 13-year-old Eddie, who gets drawn into drug-dealing and death on the streets of the capital. Wallis, whose heroes are Gandhi, Dorothy Day, and Nelson Mandela, is eloquent in his denunciation of consumerism and the huge gap between the affluent and the poor. He argues that the concept of human rights, rather than being seen as individual rights, should be broadened by a notion of community and deepened by a sense of the image of God in each person. Wallis's view of a social action that would link the issues of poverty, racism, sexism, and nuclear weapons is more visionary than practical, and his style is overly rhetorical and preachy. He avoids discussing the underlying philosophical questions of how society should be run and what people's duties are to each other, and his assessments of people and situations, such as that of contemporary South Africa, can be idealistic and naãve. The foreword is by Garry Wills and the preface by Cornel West. A stimulating vision of a just society but with little meat for those who want to ask deeper questions.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56584-204-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
Through interviews with married women of various ages who have had affairs, Heyn, a Mademoiselle columnist who's worked in women's magazines for 20 years, takes a fresh look at female adultery— which she claims is on the rise—and attempts to explode some common beliefs about women and sex (among them, that women are monogamous by nature and that happily married women don't have affairs). Without claiming to have conducted a scientific study, Heyn draws on anecdotal material that seems to point to a new insistence on sexual pleasure for married women—whether achieved within the marital framework or outside of it. Most of the women queried acknowledge burying their sexual past when they got married and buying into what Heyn calls ``the myth of romantic marriage.'' Victims of a ``Donna Reed'' syndrome—trying to be the perfect wife—they begin to experience a loss of self. Eventually, given the opportunity, they attempt to regain their individuality in sexual affairs. Generally, these affairs empower and revitalize the women—who have no regrets. What's groundbreaking about Heyn's survey, then, is its indication that women are less willing today to sacrifice their happiness for an ideal (i.e., a monogamous marriage) that, at least in these cases, doesn't fulfill their needs. Women apparently can love two men at once, and they can love their spouse and have sex with someone else, just as men allegedly do. And an affair can act as a catalyst for positive change. What makes this book less than revolutionary, though, is that, taken one by one, something seems to be missing in the way these married couples relate to one another. And so, based on Heyn's study, one can't generalize about the limits of monogamous marriage; but one can conclude that women are less willing today to barter sexual happiness for the security of marriage. They want both. While Heyn never quite develops a coherent thesis, then, she does give appealing voice to a growing and significant phenomenon in American female sexuality.
Pub Date: June 14, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-41339-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1992
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