Graydon Carter, Gay Talese, and Anna Carter at the Waverly Inn, in Manhattan, for a party in honor of Talese’s new memoir, *Bartleby and Me.*

*Top,* Anna Carter, Sandra Bernhard, and Gay Talese; *above,* Tony Danza.

*Top,* Mark Rozzo and Jim Goodale; *above,* Sheila Wolfe and Nan Talese.

*Top,* Toni Bentley and Gay Talese; *above,* Susan and Chip Fisher.

*Top,* Shawn McCreesh and Nathan King; *above,* Judy Collins and Nan Talese.

*Top,* Neil Leifer, Nick Pileggi, and Gay Talese; *above,* Nick Pileggi, Catherine Talese, Nan Talese, and Lynn Nesbit.

*Top,* Carolyn Ryan, Sadie Stein, and Pamela Paul; *above,* Michael Grynbaum, Juli Weiner, and George Kalogerakis.

*Top,* Emanuele Della Valle and Terry McDonell; *above,* Casey Gerald and Lynn Nesbit.

*Top,* Nick Pileggi and Morgan Entrekin; *above,* the scene at the Waverly Inn.

*Top,* Nan and Gay Talese; *above,* David Haskell, Ash Carter, and Shawn McCreesh.

*Top,* Toni Bentley, Nan Talese, and Joel Grey; *above,* David Margolick and Neil Leifer.

*Top,* Dana Brown and Michael Grynbaum; *above,* Lynn Goldner.

*Top,* Lynn Nesbit; *above,* James Barron and Clyde Haberman.

*Top,* Lynn Nesbit, Sheila Wolfe, Gay Talese, and Louise Grunwald; *above,* David Remnick, Gay Talese, and Susan Morrison.

*Top,* Gay Talese and Peter Hubbard; *above,* Graydon Carter greets guests.

A Night Celebrating Gay Talese

Judy Collins, Tony Danza, David Remnick, and others gathered at the Waverly Inn to celebrate the writer’s new memoir

By Nathan King

Photographs by Daniel Paik

On Tuesday night at the Waverly Inn, Gay Talese was as impossible to reach as Frank Sinatra. But unlike Ol’ Blue Eyes, who notoriously eluded the journalist for three months between 1965 and 1966—resulting in the magazine profile heard around the world, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”—Talese was game to talk. In fact, he started the evening by asking whether there was a microphone so he could say a few words and introduce some people. (There wasn’t.)

For the entire night, he was surrounded by a crush of well-wishers who were invited by AIR MAIL’s Co-Editors, Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley, to celebrate Talese’s latest book, the journalistic memoir Bartleby and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener.