4 ms·

What are the odds that the entire story is pure (and well written) fiction, and that Gerald Foos never existed?

jzwinck 11y ago
I would expect the purchase and sale of the hotel is a matter of public record, so it should be straightforward to check if the guy really ran the place.
- saalweachter 11y ago
  In the article, it mentions the sale of the hotel was recorded in '69, while the journal starts in '66. Meanwhile, the local police have no record of the murder, unsolved or otherwise. It's possible those discrepancies could be explained, but the author left them in there to likely indicate he believes the voyeur's account is a mix of fantasy and reality. Which gives it dubious value as a research document, ignoring the ethics of how it was collected. Which in turn makes it difficult to rationalize the way in which the data was collected, if the data is of no value.
qq66 11y ago
Gay Talese doesn't really write fiction. He may have never written a fiction piece in his life, it would be an odd time in his career to start.
- partisan 11y ago
  Were you in the vent above him watching the whole time? Maybe he writes fictional pieces and then quietly flushes them down the toilet. Maybe there's a whole stack of fictional stories sitting on his desk waiting to be printed based on the popularity of this story. If I took one thing from this article, it's that you never know what other people do or don't do. It's the thing you know, but it's jarring when you are reminded of it.
  - qq66 11y ago
    Maybe he's a two-headed space alien.
  - yarou 11y ago
    Sure, but we have this nifty thing called Occam's Razor to immediately prune far fetched explanations, like someone secretly being a space lizard from Nibiru.
cwhipasapa 11y ago
There's an item about it in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owner-decades-spied-guests-having-sex http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owne... If the story checks out, I expect (or hope) the fallout will be a lot bigger in the coming weeks - that is assuming ISIS doesn't blow up the White house or Donald Trump commit suicide or something
pivo 11y ago
I actually suspected that this was fiction when I read the part about Mr. Talese's tie accidentally hanging down through the vent above the couple having sex. How could that possibly happen without him or the couple noticing it?
pvg 11y ago
Zero. The New Yorker labels its fiction as fiction.

I would expect the purchase and sale of the hotel is a matter of public record, so it should be straightforward to check if the guy really ran the place.

saalweachter 11y ago
In the article, it mentions the sale of the hotel was recorded in '69, while the journal starts in '66. Meanwhile, the local police have no record of the murder, unsolved or otherwise. It's possible those discrepancies could be explained, but the author left them in there to likely indicate he believes the voyeur's account is a mix of fantasy and reality. Which gives it dubious value as a research document, ignoring the ethics of how it was collected. Which in turn makes it difficult to rationalize the way in which the data was collected, if the data is of no value.

qq66 11y ago

Gay Talese doesn't really write fiction. He may have never written a fiction piece in his life, it would be an odd time in his career to start.

partisan 11y ago
Were you in the vent above him watching the whole time? Maybe he writes fictional pieces and then quietly flushes them down the toilet. Maybe there's a whole stack of fictional stories sitting on his desk waiting to be printed based on the popularity of this story. If I took one thing from this article, it's that you never know what other people do or don't do. It's the thing you know, but it's jarring when you are reminded of it.
- qq66 11y ago
  Maybe he's a two-headed space alien.
- yarou 11y ago
  Sure, but we have this nifty thing called Occam's Razor to immediately prune far fetched explanations, like someone secretly being a space lizard from Nibiru.

cwhipasapa 11y ago

There's an item about it in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owner-decades-spied-guests-having-sex http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owne... If the story checks out, I expect (or hope) the fallout will be a lot bigger in the coming weeks - that is assuming ISIS doesn't blow up the White house or Donald Trump commit suicide or something

pivo 11y ago

I actually suspected that this was fiction when I read the part about Mr. Talese's tie accidentally hanging down through the vent above the couple having sex. How could that possibly happen without him or the couple noticing it?

pvg 11y ago

Zero. The New Yorker labels its fiction as fiction.