The Voyeur's Motel

On January 7, 1980, in the run-up to the publication of Thy Neighbor''s Wife, Gay Talese received an anonymous letter from a man in Colorado. ''Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-t ...

On January 7, 1980, in the run-up to the publication of Thy Neighbor''s Wife, Gay Talese received an anonymous letter from a man in Colorado. ''Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America,'' the letter began, ''I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.'' The man went on to tell Talese a remarkable, shocking secret, so compelling that Talese travelled to Colorado to verify it in person. But because the letter-writer insisted on remaining anonymous, Talese filed his reporting away, certain the story