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VIA
Interviews Gay Talese For nearly thirty
years, whether the subject was the building of the Verrazano bridge in The Bridge, The New York Times in The Kingdom and the Power, the mafia
in Honor Thy Father, or sexuality
and the First Amendment in Thy
Neighbor’s Wife Gay Talese’s books have served as mirrors of their times.
In Unto the Sons, Talese has turned the
mirror away from others and onto himself and those who have contributed, not
only to the making of a man named Gay Talese, but to the making of a country
named America. Unto the Sons
represents the biggest risk Talese has taken yet in a stellar career as one
of America’s most successful and innovative writers. With this book, he
has left the old ways of creating his past best-sellers for the new. In spite
of what an old world proverb warns: “Chi lascia la via vecchia per la nuova,
sa quello che lascia, ma non sa quello che trova” (He who leaves the old way
for the new, knows what he leaves behind but not what he will find), Talese’s
journey back has led him to delve into the Italian/American experience. Last spring, Talese
stopped in Chicago on his promotional tour and spent some time with VIA. The following interview,
excerpted from a larger interview, concentrates on Talese’s travels to Italy
and his insights into Italian/American culture. * * * * * * * VIA: Where does Unto the Sons fit in the context of
your other books? GT: Unto
the Sons is very much a departure from what I’ve done before. Instead of
going out, I’ve gone inward, off in a different direction. The ambitions for
this book were to write as personally as I would if I were writing a novel,
but not write a novel, and yet not necessarily write an autobiography. I
wanted to do something different, something that was a blend of history, a
history that I thought needed to be written because I didn’t read it all in
one book of the American Italian experience. However, in another way, the
structure in not unlike what I’ve done before. The Kingdom and the Power is about a family and its relatives; Honor Thy Father covers the Bonnano
family; The Bridge is about the
bridge-builders and their families, and Thy
Neighbor’s Wife portrays the reality of fantasy and shows what happens
when fantasies are realized. VIA: This work combines
research, interviews, oral tradition, and fictional techniques. When did you
begin work on it? GT: It all goes back to my first trip back to
Italy when I was in the Army. Through enforced ROTC at the University of
Alabama I went on to be trained as a tank officer at Fort Knox. For a boy
from New Jersey, going to Alabama was like being an immigrant. After I
graduated college, I wanted to be quartermaster; all I knew was tailoring,
but they stuck me in tanks. Fortunately Creighton W. Abrams wanted a public
relations officer; I reported to headquarters under Abrams in the 3rd Armored
division; that was the same outfit Elvis served in. We were transferred to
Frankfurt. I soon realized that we could get free travel and so I went to
Rome in 1955. I
had never been to Europe before. I got on a train to Naples and from there I
went to Calabria. I had heard of Maida, but there I was, wearing the uniform
of the army that ten years earlier was bombing the hell out of that place. At
the station in Maida a guy asked me if I wanted a ride. I gave him my name,
and he said he knew some Taleses. He takes me to the top of the mountain,
into the town square where some old men were sitting around a fountain with a
statue of Garibaldi in the background. It was funny; they didn’t know what to
make of me. Soon an old guy comes down, embraces me, and leads me away. Turns
out he was Domenico, my father’s youngest brother who’d been in the Spanish
Civil War, and World War II, and now he was working his father’s farm. All
these people are following us up the hill into the house of an old woman who
was my father’s mother; when she heard that Giuseppe’s son, Gaetano, was
here, she went crazy; a hundred people come into this house, and I must have
been like an apparation for she collapsed and they had to revive her. Then I
was escorted into a bedroom, where there’s a little guy lying down. On the
way I see a statue of San Francesco di Paola, just like the one I had grown
up with. This guy has an enormous head, turns out he was my father’s brother
who was gassed at Caporetto in 1916; he embraces me. Then all these people
start kissing me and all these arms are around me; I have no idea what they
are talking about; I didn’t speak a word of Italian. The whole scene was out
of some strange movie. I felt I had to get out of there. If I could have
flown out, I would have. I couldn’t take it. After
that, as an American Italian, I didn’t want to be Italian. But what haunted
me was that if I didn’t then why did I go there to begin with. No one forced
me; there were two different guys operating here and I wasn’t ready for it. I
returned to Germany, and during my stay I never went back to Maida. After the
Army, I didn’t know who I was; I had to accept the fact that I was running
away from it all. This is the story I tell in my next book. I told my father
about the trip; he was pleased; but I made up lies, that was fiction writing
right there. VIA: So when did you
return? GT: I returned with my father in 1962. He had
reached a point where I think he wanted to do something about a cemetery. By
that time his mother was dead, as was his brother, Sebastian; they were
buried together. My father’s father Gaetano was buried in the same cemetery.
My father wanted them buried together. He had run away from his family in
1920, and had always resented his mother’s staying in Italy the first time
his father had immigrated. Now, 42 years later, he was ready to go back. He
didn’t want to tell anyone he was going; he just wanted to show up and we
did. I
was his escort service. We saw many of the same characters from my first
trip. His younger brothers were still alive. This was the first time that I
saw, in visual terms, the American experience alongside the Italian
experience. Nicola, the second youngest brother, and Domenico the youngest,
had my father’s face and slept in straw mattresses. All their teeth were
gone; then all these kids were coming out of the stone work; there were many
Gaetanos and Domenicos. My father was like another hero figure, like
Christopher Columbus. I was standing in the background, aloof, watching it
all. My father played the part of the American tremendously well. You know,
tailors can be actors, they’re naturally concerned with appearances, and he
carried it off as if he was an aristocrat. In spite of the fact that I was
taking notes, I still remember the first time better. VIA: Did you write
anything about this trip? GT: When I came back to the U.S. I started
doing magazine pieces. In “The Ethics of Frank Costello,” there are sections
of Unto the Sons that are taken
right out of there. The story of the town of Ambler, is in there. In 1965 I
left the New York Times to write
magazine pieces, but most of it was about the American experience. I wrote on
Frank Sinatra and Joe Dimaggio but I was just touching on the Italian stuff.
I thought I’d do more with it by writing a book on Lee Iacocca. In 1981 I
spent more than six months with Iacocca, at my own expense. We shared a lot
of the same feelings and I thought I might be able to get out this Italian
story through somebody else; I wasn’t ready to face it myself, cause I didn’t
know whether I could carry it off. But the Iacocca story just didn’t work. He
went with another writer and I was free to pursue my own story. After that, I
went to Italy with an interpreter. VIA: Your uncle
Antonio, the tailor, plays a major role in the story. Were you able to
interview him? GT: Yes, I visited Antonio in Paris, but I had
met him before, during his earlier visits to New York. I stayed in Maida for
three months, and took a trip to Paris. He showed me this diary, but since I
couldn’t read it I asked if I could borrow it and then brought it to a
translator. After reading his diary, I was ready to interview him; otherwise
I wouldn’t have known what to ask him. His mention of Leon Blum led me to
research through books. I was amazed how little I knew of Italian history. If
there’s a lesson here it’s got to be know your history, don’t wait until
you’re 50 like I did. This book is really about me finding my history. VIA: What do you expect
this book to do? GT: I want this book to get Italian American
writers to join me in this project of recovering the past. I want to attract
those who are more confident than I was, those who are younger because they
can be more productive. My dream for this book is that it will start, in a
public way, an awareness in the larger America of the American Italian
writers; if this book is sufficiently successful it may help loosen up
publishers to say there is something about the American Italian experience
that is worth publishing cause there’s an audience out there; there was no
audience, but I believe there is one now. VIA: Did you grow up
with many Italian Americans? GT: Not really. My father’s tailor shop was
on the main avenue of the town. There were some Italian families that lived
along the railroad tracks for whom my father tried to be a padrone; he tried
to organize them and couldn’t. He was friends with the mayor and would try to
get their kids jobs. Today the police chief of Ocean City is from Maida. He
came over at the age of four in a brown shirt. My father met him at the boat;
the kid’s father was a shoemaker, and 50 years later, his son is the chief of
police. VIA: What’s your take
on the future of Italian American culture? GT: First of all, it has to get started. I
love the fact that we’re a part of something that’s growing. But you need
help; you can’t do it from Chicago with a fifty dollar a year budget; you
need to connect people throughout the United States. You see since we have no
tradition of unity in politics or culture we’ve got to start one. |