In preparation for writing his 1971 book Thy Neighbor’s Wife, An exploration of early-1950s sexuality in America, with notable discussion of the free love subculture Gay Talese had sex with his neighbor’s wife for several months at the nudist resort Sandstone Retreat. Incredibly enough, his wife, Nan Talese went along with this research.
This anecdote shows just how tough the job of researching your book can be. Note that he not only had to get permission from the wife to screw his next door neighbor’s wife (Not an easy task for any man!) but he had to keep on having sex with her (For research only!) not just twice, but on many occasions over a period of several months.
A lot of people can put pen to paper, but doing the real legwork of researching your book really separates the men from the boys.
Bottom line is writing is hard work.
3
20
20
20
When you have a first name like “Gay”, you have to do a lot of over-compensating, no?