Gay Talese's Frank Sinatra Has a Cold...the Greatest Magazine Story Ever Told?

[matthew yeomans]

Gawker, the snarky but essential read on NY media, takes Esquire to task today for reprinting Gay Talese's classic profile of Frank Sinatra.

Frankly the Gawker piece reads like a media blogger in search of a story but never mind that...it links to the original Talese piece now available online.

Give it a read guys and soak up a masterpiece of magazine journalism from back in the heyday of America's New Journalism revolution.

I promise you won't be disappointed - except those of you who will be and will let me know about it....

[Tom Knight]

Brilliant.

[Elizabeth-Anne]

Wow. Thanks for linking to that! It's just gives off this fantastic sense of sleazy, smokey glamour. I wish it were possible to NOT be enthralled by Sinatra the icon; I don't want to buy into some myth around a man who was in many ways rather unplesant. But my God he could sing.

[Harry Kretchmer]

One of the most striking aspects of the piece is its length. Although there is a tradition in US magazines like the New Yorker of running long articles, you would be hard pressed to find one quite as long as this today - certainly in Britain. Why is this?

[matthew yeomans]

I think it's partly the perception of mag publishers that readers don't have the time/attention span for long form features. Look at any magazine nowadays (aside from the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly) and you'll find them littered with short boxes, side bars, charticles, lists.....so called multiple points of entry to the mag's content.

[Harry Kretchmer]

Do you think they're right? Perhaps there is a niche for long articles ready to be exploited - The Retro...?

[matthew yeomans]

yeah, maybe call it - Time...On Your Hands....?

[Harry Kretchmer]

Oh dear

[Ewen]

This is exactly the sort of writing I aspire to. Sinatra should not be lionized - the man's reputation as a bastard precedes him. The last paragraph in particular should be etched on his tombstone as a reminder of his fallibility.