Session Five · Unit Two — The Neighbors
Across the Hall — The Profile and the Portrait
The Genre: The Profile & Literary Journalism
Handouts & Worksheets
Main Points of the Lesson
- A profile is a portrait in time. The profile renders a person through what they do, say, and carry — and through the people around them.
- The absent subject. Talese never interviewed Sinatra. He built the portrait from observation and from dozens of conversations with others. Access is not the only door.
- Scene-by-scene construction. New Journalism borrowed the novelist’s tools: scene, dialogue, point of view, and the telling detail of status and habit.
- Accuracy is the ethic. In nonfiction, a vivid invention is still an invention. Quotations must be real; composites must be declared; dates must be checked.
- Writing our neighbors. A neighbor is not a character. They will read what we write. Consent, fairness, and the right to see the draft are part of the work.
Reading for Class — Click to Open
- Gay Talese, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” (Esquire, April 1966) — read at Esquire
Perhaps the most celebrated magazine profile ever written, and a model of the portrait built from everything but an interview. - Textbook: Tell It Slant, Chapter 11, “The Particular Challenges of Creative Nonfiction” — see the textbook guide
After Our Discussion — Critical Reception
- “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” — background (Wikipedia) — How the piece was reported and why it changed magazine writing.
- New Journalism — the movement (Wikipedia) — Talese, Wolfe, Didion, and the novelistic techniques of 1960s nonfiction.
- Gay Talese — background (Wikipedia) — The journalist’s career and methods.
In-Class Writing Prompt — Laptops Closed
Write a portrait of someone you knew well who has died or whom you have not seen in many years — not a neighbor. Give us three things: one gesture, one sentence they always said, and one object you associate with them. Let the reader infer the rest.
We practice on memory before we practice on neighbors. Portraits of living residents come only after consent (see Writing Our Neighbors).
What happens with this: nothing is collected. It is yours, written on paper, in your notebook. No one is asked to read aloud who does not wish to.
Discussion Questions
- Talese opens with a cold. Why is an illness the perfect entry into a portrait of power?
- List five details that tell us about Sinatra’s status without stating it. How does Talese choose them?
- What are the ethical risks of writing about someone who declined to speak with you?
- If a neighbor asked to read your portrait of them before anyone else did, what would you do?
Homework
- Read Tell It Slant, Chapter 4, “Gathering the Threads of History.”
- Revise your in-class portrait into 750 words.
- Arrange an interview. Invite one willing neighbor, friend, or family member to a thirty-minute conversation about a place they have lived. Bring the consent form. No interview is ever required.
- Browse for Session 6: the Library of Congress American Life Histories collection of the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1940.
For the 2601 Anthology
The anthology’s second section, Neighbors, will hold portraits — but only of residents who have read and approved them.
Before Next Time — Session 6
Voices of 2601 — Oral History and the Interview. The craft of asking, listening, and shaping another person’s words into a true story in their own voice.