A review by bethreadsandnaps
Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay Talese
3.0
This is different than I expected. I learned about this author through the Netflix documentary Voyeur. He advertised this one heavily in that. It was an odd book, basically talking about “indecency” through the years. Most of the chapters seem like self-contained essays about specific people. There are several chapters about Hefner. Since this book was written in the 70s, this is Hefner the Early Years. He also talks about the main players who started Sandstone, which is basically a commune.
The book was billed as a journalist infiltrating a commune, but he really talks about the people involved. The last 10% of the book he interjects himself, referring to himself in third person (weird), but even that isn’t lascivious.
I found this somewhat boring, but I learned some interesting tidbits, like the Oneida silverware founders had a free love commune, so it wasn’t a waste.
The book was billed as a journalist infiltrating a commune, but he really talks about the people involved. The last 10% of the book he interjects himself, referring to himself in third person (weird), but even that isn’t lascivious.
I found this somewhat boring, but I learned some interesting tidbits, like the Oneida silverware founders had a free love commune, so it wasn’t a waste.