Gay Talese was born to Italian immigrant parents in Ocean City, New Jersey, in 1932. He went to the University of Alabama and was hired as a copyboy at the New York Times following graduation. Talese returned to the New York Times in 1956 after a brief tour in the army. Since then, he's contributed to Esquire, the New Yorker, Newsweek, and Harper's Magazine, among others. These stories led Tom Wolfe to credit Gay Talese with the invention of The New Journalism, a creative type of nonfiction writing.

Talese's best-selling works have covered topics such as the New York Times' history and influence (The Kingdom and the Power); the inner story of a Mafia family (Honor Thy Father); his father's immigration to America from Italy in the years leading up to World War II (Unto the Sons); and the shifting moral ideals of America in the years leading up to the AIDS epidemic (Thy Neighbor's Wife). Gay Talese resides in New York City with his wife, Nan.