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Talk
Friendships are built on chatter, on gossip, on revelations—on talk. Over the course of the summer of 1965, Linda Rosenkrantz taped conversations between three friends (two straight, one gay) on the cusp of thirty vacationing at the beach: Emily, an actor; Vince, a painter; and Marsha, a writer. The result was Talk, a novel in dialogue. The friends are ambitious, conflicted, jealous, petty, loving, funny, sex- and shrink-obsessed, and there’s nothing they won’t discuss. Topics covered include LSD, fathers, exes, lovers, abortions, S&M, sculpture, books, cats, and of course, each other.
Talk was ahead of its time in recognizing the fascination and significance of nonfamily ties in contemporary life. It may be almost fifty years since Emily, Vince, and Marsha spent the season in East Hampton, but they wouldn’t be out of place on the set of Girls or in the pages of a novel like Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?
Talk was ahead of its time in recognizing the fascination and significance of nonfamily ties in contemporary life. It may be almost fifty years since Emily, Vince, and Marsha spent the season in East Hampton, but they wouldn’t be out of place on the set of Girls or in the pages of a novel like Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?
215 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 1968
70 people are currently reading
2958 people want to read
About the author
Linda Rosenkrantz
30 books5 followersLinda Rosenkrantz is an American writer, known for her innovations in the realm of “nonfiction fiction,” most prominently in her novel Talk, a New York Review Books classic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews
May 18, 2017
I can't even defend myself. This is bad. Really, really bad. I can not imagine that Fifty Shades of Grey could be worse.
The back of the book says it is "a hilariously irreverent and racy testament to dialogue." It is, if you can imagine, real-time (1965) dialogue of three friends: Marsha, Emily and Vincent. Vincent is gay, mostly. A lot of their Talk is on the beach. More from the book's back: The friends discuss sex, shrinks, psychedelics, sculpture, and S and M in an ongoing dialogue where anything goes and no topic is off limits. It was, we're told, "controversial" when first published and remains fresh, lascivious, and laugh-out-loud funny nearly fifty years later.
It is none of those things. And it it is not a novel, either.
This is where it gets creepy. The author, Linda Rosenkrantz, brought out her tape recorder that summer and recorded the conversations of 25 of her closest friends. She then edited the voluminous transcripts down to the choicest moments of Marsha, Emily and Vincent. Not a peep from anyone else; nothing from Ms. Rosenkrantz. And we have a novel. Voilà.
Now, perhaps like me, you have had conversations you believed were print-worthy. But the next day, no longer in the bar where the conversation was held, the text no longer seems world-changing. Just two or three people being clever.
This wasn't even that.
Here's some samplings:
MARSHA: My average relationship with a man, actual talking to each other, loving each other, relating to each other, sleeping with each other, is usually one to two weeks in duration. The amount of time I spend feeling rejected, crying over it, not seeing him but living it out, is three to four years.
And:
VINCENT: Don't make the mistake of thinking that every man you've been to bed with was something special, Emily.
Vincent gives Emily a for instance: I find him so absolutely vulgar, I mean he could be a German.
There are fascinating conversation-starters, like this from Emily: If this person were a color, what color would he be?
Another more personal one from Emily: Go ahead, tell me why I'm a pathetic person. . .
Tempting to respond, isn't it?
This did not scratch a prurient itch. It provided no insight on the candid thoughts of women. And, if I happened to hear this dialogue on the beach, I would have moved my blanket.
The back of the book says it is "a hilariously irreverent and racy testament to dialogue." It is, if you can imagine, real-time (1965) dialogue of three friends: Marsha, Emily and Vincent. Vincent is gay, mostly. A lot of their Talk is on the beach. More from the book's back: The friends discuss sex, shrinks, psychedelics, sculpture, and S and M in an ongoing dialogue where anything goes and no topic is off limits. It was, we're told, "controversial" when first published and remains fresh, lascivious, and laugh-out-loud funny nearly fifty years later.
It is none of those things. And it it is not a novel, either.
This is where it gets creepy. The author, Linda Rosenkrantz, brought out her tape recorder that summer and recorded the conversations of 25 of her closest friends. She then edited the voluminous transcripts down to the choicest moments of Marsha, Emily and Vincent. Not a peep from anyone else; nothing from Ms. Rosenkrantz. And we have a novel. Voilà.
Now, perhaps like me, you have had conversations you believed were print-worthy. But the next day, no longer in the bar where the conversation was held, the text no longer seems world-changing. Just two or three people being clever.
This wasn't even that.
Here's some samplings:
MARSHA: My average relationship with a man, actual talking to each other, loving each other, relating to each other, sleeping with each other, is usually one to two weeks in duration. The amount of time I spend feeling rejected, crying over it, not seeing him but living it out, is three to four years.
And:
VINCENT: Don't make the mistake of thinking that every man you've been to bed with was something special, Emily.
Vincent gives Emily a for instance: I find him so absolutely vulgar, I mean he could be a German.
There are fascinating conversation-starters, like this from Emily: If this person were a color, what color would he be?
Another more personal one from Emily: Go ahead, tell me why I'm a pathetic person. . .
Tempting to respond, isn't it?
This did not scratch a prurient itch. It provided no insight on the candid thoughts of women. And, if I happened to hear this dialogue on the beach, I would have moved my blanket.
October 19, 2015
Like a literary version of The Real World, Talk began life as hours upon hours of audiotape and over a thousand pages of transcript, all edited down to a 200-page book about three friends, Emily, Marsha, and Vince, who are spending the summer in the Hamptons somewhere in the early to mid-1960s. Cameo appearances are made by Emily's cat, Jonquil, and a number of other characters are discussed extensively, including Emily's alcoholic friend Sick Joan and the panoply of men the three principals have been romantically entangled with (all of whom seem like assholes, tbh), but none of these folks have speaking parts. The book consists solely of conversations among the the three main characters, either in pairs or all together.
Emily, Marsha, and Vince have BEEN. IN. ANALYSIS. All three of them have a remarkable ability to dig deep into their psyches and pasts and come up with credible reasons for everything they say or do. As you might imagine, this can be annoying, particularly early in the book when you're just getting used to these people. But sometimes it's quite funny. Sometimes it's moving. Sometimes I identified with the characters so much it was actually uncomfortable. Even though the book had no real plot to speak of, it definitely built some momentum and even became suspenseful at times--and there were meta elements that I found really fascinating.
Only you know if you can handle a book that consists only of dialogue between three 1960s twentysomethings on vacation. If it sounds intriguing to you, though, give Talk a try. It may end up surprising you.
Emily, Marsha, and Vince have BEEN. IN. ANALYSIS. All three of them have a remarkable ability to dig deep into their psyches and pasts and come up with credible reasons for everything they say or do. As you might imagine, this can be annoying, particularly early in the book when you're just getting used to these people. But sometimes it's quite funny. Sometimes it's moving. Sometimes I identified with the characters so much it was actually uncomfortable. Even though the book had no real plot to speak of, it definitely built some momentum and even became suspenseful at times--and there were meta elements that I found really fascinating.
Only you know if you can handle a book that consists only of dialogue between three 1960s twentysomethings on vacation. If it sounds intriguing to you, though, give Talk a try. It may end up surprising you.
September 3, 2016
Sorry! I am not going to talk about this Talk which initially attracted me by its seemingly interesting conversation of three not-so-common individuals. But, later, the individuals have turned to be mere common folks who hardly deserve any sympathy and who seem not worth our attention. The details of their past affairs, broken marriages, childhood in a closet, platonic loves, loveless intercourse, and unappetizing pastries turn out to be droll for me. Hence I quit listening. Well, you may talk!
January 7, 2020
Just spectacular. Like the experimental cinema of the 1960's—the same general milieu from which Talk and its characters emerge—that seemed to narcissistically position its own participants in front cameras, let the cameras roll, and declare as "art" whatever happened to occur, Rosenkrantz's novel obscures its level of artistry under the guise of "unedited reality"—which of course it is anything but. Like Warhol's films, Talk is the result of careful behind-the-scenes consideration and coordination, as Rosenkrantz pared down over 1,500 pages transcribed from a summer's worth of conversations between some 25 different individuals and distilled it into 215 breezy pages of gossip between three intimates comprised of two women and one gay man.
For several beachside months Marsha, Emily, and Vincent talk about nothing in particular: their friends, relationships, careers, therapy sessions, sexual experiences, pasts, dinner plans, alcohol consumption, drug usage, party invitations, art, literature, politics, insecurities, regrets, fantasies, and, most obsessively, every slight fluctation of their high-wire triangulated relationship. Which, of course, is everything, or everything, as patriarchal culture and history has long declared, in the lives of women and gay men. Which perhaps explains why this novel somehow got forgotten, and, now starting to be reclaimed upon its republication, seems to be encountering more than a bit of dismissal all over again. Ah well. If, as Oscar Wilde quipped, "history is merely gossip," then gossip must also be the stuff upon which we base history.
Of everything I read in 2019 this was probably my favorite, and the five short pages that comprise the fifteenth chapter, "Emily and Marsha Discuss Pleasure on the Beach," could very well be the best thing I read this last year. "I love good writing—it gives me orgasmic pleasure" Marsha declares, "I love, love to see a good movie, a good play" Emily insists.
And if it's not clear by now: I loved Talk.
For several beachside months Marsha, Emily, and Vincent talk about nothing in particular: their friends, relationships, careers, therapy sessions, sexual experiences, pasts, dinner plans, alcohol consumption, drug usage, party invitations, art, literature, politics, insecurities, regrets, fantasies, and, most obsessively, every slight fluctation of their high-wire triangulated relationship. Which, of course, is everything, or everything, as patriarchal culture and history has long declared, in the lives of women and gay men. Which perhaps explains why this novel somehow got forgotten, and, now starting to be reclaimed upon its republication, seems to be encountering more than a bit of dismissal all over again. Ah well. If, as Oscar Wilde quipped, "history is merely gossip," then gossip must also be the stuff upon which we base history.
Of everything I read in 2019 this was probably my favorite, and the five short pages that comprise the fifteenth chapter, "Emily and Marsha Discuss Pleasure on the Beach," could very well be the best thing I read this last year. "I love good writing—it gives me orgasmic pleasure" Marsha declares, "I love, love to see a good movie, a good play" Emily insists.
And if it's not clear by now: I loved Talk.
January 30, 2025
Pretty damn wonderful! A cool, sophisticated, personal
'window' on sex from a woman in the late '60s. A lost gem.
Long before Jong & Janowitz, and those femme scribes of
anger and Etcs., there was (bless her) Linda Rosenkrantz.
A forgotten, indeed, unknown name today, she was a trail-
blazer among Chicklit (oogly word) writing. Why doesn't
NYRB reissue, huhhh?
On Ham weekend I found this in the den and it's all about
weekending in the Hamptons in '60s when likeables vacationed
there. (Today, vulgaires swarm.) 2 gals - actress, writer -
and their artist gay pal, lovingly, easily "Talk" about their
shrinks, lovers, friends, parents, careers, drugs, abortions,
sexual positions -- the universalities of life.
It's a sunny, funny live-&-let-live view that was ahead
of its time and is even ahead of its time today. No pissys,
hysterics, sarcasms from any of the three. In dialogue form
that works, the three candidly "Talk" while beaching, cooking,
drinking, driving around.
Emily: "What are you interested in, Marsha? Orgy or menage?
Marsha: "Menage, Emily, dear. What about you, Vincent?"
Vincent: "I don't like the idea of orgy, because for me the
the personal thing is very important."
With Linda Rosenkrantz guiding the chat, you don't want the
Talk to stop.
'window' on sex from a woman in the late '60s. A lost gem.
Long before Jong & Janowitz, and those femme scribes of
anger and Etcs., there was (bless her) Linda Rosenkrantz.
A forgotten, indeed, unknown name today, she was a trail-
blazer among Chicklit (oogly word) writing. Why doesn't
NYRB reissue, huhhh?
On Ham weekend I found this in the den and it's all about
weekending in the Hamptons in '60s when likeables vacationed
there. (Today, vulgaires swarm.) 2 gals - actress, writer -
and their artist gay pal, lovingly, easily "Talk" about their
shrinks, lovers, friends, parents, careers, drugs, abortions,
sexual positions -- the universalities of life.
It's a sunny, funny live-&-let-live view that was ahead
of its time and is even ahead of its time today. No pissys,
hysterics, sarcasms from any of the three. In dialogue form
that works, the three candidly "Talk" while beaching, cooking,
drinking, driving around.
Emily: "What are you interested in, Marsha? Orgy or menage?
Marsha: "Menage, Emily, dear. What about you, Vincent?"
Vincent: "I don't like the idea of orgy, because for me the
the personal thing is very important."
With Linda Rosenkrantz guiding the chat, you don't want the
Talk to stop.
December 5, 2015
Daniel: I went on a date last night and I think it may have been the worst experience of my life.
Margaret: I already did this review.
Rebecca: Your roommate literally died once and this is the worst thing?
Autumn: Tell me about your awful date.
Daniel: I really liked him before we met, it’s so easy to like someone when you have no first-hand experiences of that person.
Autumn: Wait, am I going to be fictionalized wildly for the purpose of this review?
Daniel: Absolutely, this conversation never happened.
Margaret: I was in a version of this actual conversation.
Daniel: I’m sorry, this book only has three characters, so you’re going to be edited out. He insisted on texting me a lot before we ever met, and he was really charming and funny via text so it built up all this expectation. But that just didn’t translate for either of us in person. It was one of those things where you can immediately tell that this whole thing was a bad idea. I ate these really disgusting dates that made me almost vomit, and I got too drunk and spilled beer on myself at the end. So maybe don’t pregame on wine when you are going out for drinks.
Autumn: I always get wildly drunk and I take them home with me almost every time. I think in some ways that’s better than an actual relationship. I don’t want to date anyone seriously right now.
Rebecca: Right, because then you have to consider their feelings, and that’s just gross.
Daniel: For the longest time, I didn’t want to date at all. So I didn’t.
Autumn: That’s not a bad thing. Good for you.
Rebecca: Your problem with men is that you haven’t learned to talk to them yet.
Autumn: Mine? I know how to talk to them.
Rebecca: No, not you.
Daniel: I didn’t meet my first openly gay person until I was done with high school, so it took me a few years to reinvent that particular wheel of talking to the “opposite” sex.
Autumn: Don’t you study communication theory? How are we supposed to talk to people?
Rebecca: It’s like, you share something personal about yourself, and if they reciprocate with something personal about themselves, then you start building a relationship. You don’t really build relationships otherwise, they eventually feel that disconnect or un-reciprocation.
Daniel: Since I’ve moved away from all my friends I’ve been way too personal with everyone I’ve met right away.
Autumn: I’m not sure that’s a bad thing either.
Daniel: I’m not sure men are trained to talk that way.
Autumn: Just bang them, they’ll respond to that.
Rebecca: Honestly I only study communication as it relates to security and gender, or something, Daniel doesn’t remember. This is probably slightly wrong and more complicated than he makes it out to be.
Autumn: In this book though, Linda Rosenkrantz actually recorded conversations with her friends and used them to create this “novel,” though. This is just a bad imitation.
Rebecca: This review also doesn’t take place in the 60s.
Daniel: If any of you name drop Lena Dunham or “Girls” as a comparison I am going to set myself on fire.
Rebecca: It’s two self-involved women and a gay dude talking about themselves and they think that their problems are important enough to send out into the larger popular culture. Similar, I guess.
Daniel: Isn’t that what all literature and culture essentially is, taking your personal problems and making them available to others to relate to?
Rebecca: Maybe in a more artistic way.
Daniel: It is a little creative, though. I mean she didn’t have to do it like this. It’s only self-involved because it’s packaged in this particular way.
Autumn: I wonder if other people’s boring and personal conversations can have an impact on other people if they aren’t repackaged in some way.
Rebecca: I think eavesdropping can be meaningful, even if not everything they say is meaningful.You become more aware of other people’s personal intentions. Or personal goals and problems. It’s like an exercise in empathy building.
Autumn: But can you just jump in like that? This is also risky because not everyone is going to “get” everyone else’s voices. And on paper, you are removing a lot of the gestures and body language and tones that assists meaning.
Daniel: That’s why I don’t let guys text me too much before I meet them.
Rebecca: But Autumn isn’t that how all relationships are formed, just jumping in mid-stream of someone else’s life. Suddenly you’re there, sometimes mid-conversation or mid-bullshit, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t eventually relate.
Daniel: Still, I wish it meant more to me somehow. Maybe because they aren’t real for me. This would be more meaningful if I was actually there. It reminds me so much of those nights when everyone there just loves each other and are comfortable with each other, maybe a little tipsy and everything just feels right, and conversation flows so beautifully. Those moments feel important. It made me just want that instead of this.
Autumn: Did you try to recreate that on your date last night?
Daniel: No, conversation was f*ing impossible.
Rebecca: Some things just can’t be forced.
Margaret: I have things to say--
Daniel: It’s been great talking to you, but this review is too long and I’m still not sure I have learned something about myself from this experience. It feels like only a change in circumstance will bring the change I want, and not from any sort of self-analysis.
Rebecca: Still, it was fun. And it’s not like you’re going to stop thinking about yourself.
Margaret: I already did this review.
Rebecca: Your roommate literally died once and this is the worst thing?
Autumn: Tell me about your awful date.
Daniel: I really liked him before we met, it’s so easy to like someone when you have no first-hand experiences of that person.
Autumn: Wait, am I going to be fictionalized wildly for the purpose of this review?
Daniel: Absolutely, this conversation never happened.
Margaret: I was in a version of this actual conversation.
Daniel: I’m sorry, this book only has three characters, so you’re going to be edited out. He insisted on texting me a lot before we ever met, and he was really charming and funny via text so it built up all this expectation. But that just didn’t translate for either of us in person. It was one of those things where you can immediately tell that this whole thing was a bad idea. I ate these really disgusting dates that made me almost vomit, and I got too drunk and spilled beer on myself at the end. So maybe don’t pregame on wine when you are going out for drinks.
Autumn: I always get wildly drunk and I take them home with me almost every time. I think in some ways that’s better than an actual relationship. I don’t want to date anyone seriously right now.
Rebecca: Right, because then you have to consider their feelings, and that’s just gross.
Daniel: For the longest time, I didn’t want to date at all. So I didn’t.
Autumn: That’s not a bad thing. Good for you.
Rebecca: Your problem with men is that you haven’t learned to talk to them yet.
Autumn: Mine? I know how to talk to them.
Rebecca: No, not you.
Daniel: I didn’t meet my first openly gay person until I was done with high school, so it took me a few years to reinvent that particular wheel of talking to the “opposite” sex.
Autumn: Don’t you study communication theory? How are we supposed to talk to people?
Rebecca: It’s like, you share something personal about yourself, and if they reciprocate with something personal about themselves, then you start building a relationship. You don’t really build relationships otherwise, they eventually feel that disconnect or un-reciprocation.
Daniel: Since I’ve moved away from all my friends I’ve been way too personal with everyone I’ve met right away.
Autumn: I’m not sure that’s a bad thing either.
Daniel: I’m not sure men are trained to talk that way.
Autumn: Just bang them, they’ll respond to that.
Rebecca: Honestly I only study communication as it relates to security and gender, or something, Daniel doesn’t remember. This is probably slightly wrong and more complicated than he makes it out to be.
Autumn: In this book though, Linda Rosenkrantz actually recorded conversations with her friends and used them to create this “novel,” though. This is just a bad imitation.
Rebecca: This review also doesn’t take place in the 60s.
Daniel: If any of you name drop Lena Dunham or “Girls” as a comparison I am going to set myself on fire.
Rebecca: It’s two self-involved women and a gay dude talking about themselves and they think that their problems are important enough to send out into the larger popular culture. Similar, I guess.
Daniel: Isn’t that what all literature and culture essentially is, taking your personal problems and making them available to others to relate to?
Rebecca: Maybe in a more artistic way.
Daniel: It is a little creative, though. I mean she didn’t have to do it like this. It’s only self-involved because it’s packaged in this particular way.
Autumn: I wonder if other people’s boring and personal conversations can have an impact on other people if they aren’t repackaged in some way.
Rebecca: I think eavesdropping can be meaningful, even if not everything they say is meaningful.You become more aware of other people’s personal intentions. Or personal goals and problems. It’s like an exercise in empathy building.
Autumn: But can you just jump in like that? This is also risky because not everyone is going to “get” everyone else’s voices. And on paper, you are removing a lot of the gestures and body language and tones that assists meaning.
Daniel: That’s why I don’t let guys text me too much before I meet them.
Rebecca: But Autumn isn’t that how all relationships are formed, just jumping in mid-stream of someone else’s life. Suddenly you’re there, sometimes mid-conversation or mid-bullshit, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t eventually relate.
Daniel: Still, I wish it meant more to me somehow. Maybe because they aren’t real for me. This would be more meaningful if I was actually there. It reminds me so much of those nights when everyone there just loves each other and are comfortable with each other, maybe a little tipsy and everything just feels right, and conversation flows so beautifully. Those moments feel important. It made me just want that instead of this.
Autumn: Did you try to recreate that on your date last night?
Daniel: No, conversation was f*ing impossible.
Rebecca: Some things just can’t be forced.
Margaret: I have things to say--
Daniel: It’s been great talking to you, but this review is too long and I’m still not sure I have learned something about myself from this experience. It feels like only a change in circumstance will bring the change I want, and not from any sort of self-analysis.
Rebecca: Still, it was fun. And it’s not like you’re going to stop thinking about yourself.
EMILY: Analysis doesn’t stop.
November 16, 2015
New York Review of Books (NYRB) is brilliant in that they re-issue titles that somehow fell between the cracks of memory and acceptance. "Talk" by Linda Rosenkrantz is a very unusual "novel" in that it is a book that consist only of dialogue, and nothing else but a dialogue. Rosenkrantz took her tape recorder and taped her friends chatting away about sex, drugs, food, and the slippery subject of happiness. Originally she had 25 characters, but then edited it down to three characters, who are the voices in "Talk." Immediately one can think of Andy Warhol' s"novel," "A," but this is actually a book that is edited more than written. The commentary from all three participants in "Talk" is very pointed and beautifully stated (written).
The book (I'm not sure if this is technically a novel) took place in East Hampton in 1965. Vincent, a gay painter, Emily, perhaps an alcoholic as well as an actress, and Marsha, who I suspect is our author. Throughout the book, either on the beach, or in the kitchen, they discuss their sex lives, and the meaning of friendship between the trio. There are sexual tensions between Vincent and the girls, as well as commentary of fellow friends who not actually appear in the book as conversationists.
Since it is 1965, and Rosenkrantz and Vincent are very much part of the Manhattan art world, there are galleries mentioned as well as Andy Warhol. They are mostly passing figures, in which the dialogue is totally devoted to how Emily thinks of Vincent and Marsha, how Marsha thinks about Emily and Vincent, and of course, how Vincent feels about Marsha and Emily. One doesn't get the nitty gritty aspect of Manhattan life, except I feel that these three people are on an island by themselves. It's a fascinating document as well as a literary document of a time that has passed, yet seems very contemporary.
August 1, 2015
TALK by Linda Rosenkrantz is concept lit, in that the concept was to spend a summer tape recording her friends’ conversations and then transcribe the tapes and edit them down into a “novel-in-dialogue.” It’s an interesting experiment, which captures a time, place and culture (mid-1960s, East Hampton, creative bourgeois), and also forms a narrative of three friends’ intimate relationship. They eat, drink, go to parties, talk about sex and masturbation and drugs, have sex and gossip. Sounds like fun, and it is, but at times I tired of their talk. Then I would engage again, because like any twenty-somethings on the cusp of their thirties, there is wheat in the chaff. I found myself thinking about my relationship when they obsessed on their stream of lovers, and for a moment it was like I was there and wanted to chime in, but there was no place for me. This is a time capsule and all you can do is swallow it whole and enjoy the effects.
November 3, 2017
There's a kind of false transparency about this (taped conversations between friends chatting on the beach in the Hamptons in 1965 transcribed as "novel") that belies Rosenkrantz's deftness in piecing these three lives together from the countless more she recorded as sources. The result is warm, strongly characterized, and precisely sequenced. It's also very funny, off-handedly funny because the characters are so full realized and likeable (how could people so real be in fact composites!?) that their patterns of thought and interaction take on a rare immediacy. (Contrast with the unfunniness (to me) of John Barth's arch constructedness -- I'm reading him in parallel). Anyway, this is very New York (albeit the limited part of New York that could afford to lounge on the beach in the Hamptons), very art world (our trio are painter, actress, writer), very 1960s: the self-analytic content of their conversation is generated mostly through the cultural forces of psychoanalysis and the sexual revolution. So it's obviously dated, but retains (through its unusual immediacy) a level insight into the human condition undiluted by time. Thoroughly enjoyable.
June 8, 2017
EMILY: What's the matter, darling?
VINCENT: I'm so sad.
EMILY: Why?
VINCENT: Because that's what being alive is.
EMILY: I know it, I'm sad all the fucking time, you have no idea.
VINCENT: I heard something last week about what makes humans different from animals, some gorgeous basic thing, like that humans have memories, but it's not that.
VINCENT: I'm so sad.
EMILY: Why?
VINCENT: Because that's what being alive is.
EMILY: I know it, I'm sad all the fucking time, you have no idea.
VINCENT: I heard something last week about what makes humans different from animals, some gorgeous basic thing, like that humans have memories, but it's not that.
May 31, 2016
The kind of book that seems utterly fascinating when you give it a cursory flip-through at the bookstore but is pretty hit or miss when you actually sit down to read it at home.
July 6, 2015
20 hours ago
Daniel: how was "talk"?
Me: I thought it was pretty good
The whole "tape recorded" dialog thing makes me skeptical in actual execution since there was the author there? maybe? for these conversations
but I liked how natural the dialog was
Daniel: Ok cool. When I was looking at their releases for this year forever ago that was one of the major ones that stuck out to me
Me: It's pretty neat, all experimental and 1960s ish
a few seconds ago
Me: Can I just put up our conversation about Talk from last night up as a review on goodreads? I think it would be very meta.
Daniel: yea
Me: That makes that easy! and meta
Daniel: haha
Daniel: how was "talk"?
Me: I thought it was pretty good
The whole "tape recorded" dialog thing makes me skeptical in actual execution since there was the author there? maybe? for these conversations
but I liked how natural the dialog was
Daniel: Ok cool. When I was looking at their releases for this year forever ago that was one of the major ones that stuck out to me
Me: It's pretty neat, all experimental and 1960s ish
a few seconds ago
Me: Can I just put up our conversation about Talk from last night up as a review on goodreads? I think it would be very meta.
Daniel: yea
Me: That makes that easy! and meta
Daniel: haha
July 13, 2015
A book about nothing, and proud of it.
March 19, 2025
Chaotic misguidance.
September 15, 2022
this was the perfect book to tote around with me. it’s short with short chapters so you can pick it up and just read a little bit on the subway or when you’re waiting for someone. it’s just a transcript of conversations between three friends during the summer of 1965 and i loved it cause it seems so modern and as cliche as it sounds, it really shows you how similar people’s lives and problems and things on their mind are no matter when it is.
July 30, 2015
Elsewhere I described this as my literary summer soundtrack, and I’m not sure I can come up with anything better. Talk, which was originally published in 1968, is the transcript of three friends talking to each other out in the Hamptons during the summer of 1965—originally a number of friends taped by Rosenkrantz, distilled down to two women and their gay male best friend. They’re in their late 20s/early 30s, involved in the 1960s New York art scene—Andy Warhol and Henry Geldzahler are name-dropped—and all, as was the fashion, in analysis. The conversations veer from banal to deep, self-important to involved, trite to interesting, and cover a lot of bases where sex, art, food, and relationships are concerned. It’s just delightful, even when the speakers themselves get tiresome—it’s the rhythms of the conversation of friendship that make it work.
There’s a kind of music to it, even when the reader thinks—often—that they’re all slightly narcissistic and immature. But aren’t we all sometimes—and even more to the point, don’t we all have those thoughts about our nearest and dearest, even as we still love them? Talk is like that, and it swings along cheerfully even as it takes some dark turns. It’s a fine summer read, and it’s guaranteed to put a little burnish on your own chatter with friends for a while after it ends.
Full review on Like Fire.a
There’s a kind of music to it, even when the reader thinks—often—that they’re all slightly narcissistic and immature. But aren’t we all sometimes—and even more to the point, don’t we all have those thoughts about our nearest and dearest, even as we still love them? Talk is like that, and it swings along cheerfully even as it takes some dark turns. It’s a fine summer read, and it’s guaranteed to put a little burnish on your own chatter with friends for a while after it ends.
Full review on Like Fire.a
June 27, 2019
loved this book but it would have been better if i was slightly drunk and reading it at the pool
June 2, 2023
3.5 stars! Honestly i thought this was really fun. it felt so much like how my friends and I talk. let's discuss our current love affairs, childhood trauma, and try to psychoanalyze ourselves. Can def see why it's very mixed reviews but personally I enjoyed.
September 6, 2015
Talk is a novel easy to like. It's a novel made up of the conversations of Vincent, Marsha, and Emily that run the course of a summer spent in East Hampton. Stephen Koch, in his "Introduction," described this as a kind of reality novel. As he tells it, Rosenkrantz began it by taping the conversations of friends during a summer at the beach. Then she created her novel by reducing the talk of 25 people and 1500 pages of transcript into 215 pages and 28 conversations between 3 of them--not characters, we're told, but real people.
It's very much a novel of the 1960s in that what the trio of friends talk about at the beach or over dinner or in the car are the hot topics of the day: the sexual revolution, the gay-straight dynamic (gay Vincent's 2 closest friends are Marsha and Emily), drugs, rock & roll, the New York scene of Andy Warhol and Susan Sontag, literary culture, food, and psychoanalysis. It's almost a little encyclopedia of its time and yet because Vietnam isn't a topic in these conversations you feel a little as if there's a hole. But though the war was so much of a part of our 60s consciousness, for these 3 in the summer of 1965 it hasn't yet become such a passionate issue. Passion is reserved for sex. All of them are intent on talking out their past relationships and what they hope for in the near future. It's a funny book, too. It's kind of like watching a sitcom because the banter is so teasing while it stings with the deep understanding of friendship. Vincent is funny all the time. Marsha and Emily are funniest at the beach watching the men. Besides being fun to read Talk is also always interesting. Those 3 never flag.
It's very much a novel of the 1960s in that what the trio of friends talk about at the beach or over dinner or in the car are the hot topics of the day: the sexual revolution, the gay-straight dynamic (gay Vincent's 2 closest friends are Marsha and Emily), drugs, rock & roll, the New York scene of Andy Warhol and Susan Sontag, literary culture, food, and psychoanalysis. It's almost a little encyclopedia of its time and yet because Vietnam isn't a topic in these conversations you feel a little as if there's a hole. But though the war was so much of a part of our 60s consciousness, for these 3 in the summer of 1965 it hasn't yet become such a passionate issue. Passion is reserved for sex. All of them are intent on talking out their past relationships and what they hope for in the near future. It's a funny book, too. It's kind of like watching a sitcom because the banter is so teasing while it stings with the deep understanding of friendship. Vincent is funny all the time. Marsha and Emily are funniest at the beach watching the men. Besides being fun to read Talk is also always interesting. Those 3 never flag.
August 6, 2015
I picked this up at the bookstore, read the first page, and knew it was for me.
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MARSHA: By the way, is the thing you brought me a dessert or a snack?
EMILY: Both.
MARSHA: Is it something that goes with milk?
EMILY: Yes.
MARSHA: Oh, that's great, just great.
EMILY: I'm sorry, I didn't have enough money to get milk because the thing was so expensive, but I love the question about the milk.
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I want to give this book to everyone I know... or maybe just every woman I know. It probably helps to know that the character Marsha is actually the author, Linda Rosenkrantz. And maybe if you are the kind of person who thinks every character in a book should be likable at all times, this is certainly not for you. But I love it for precisely that reason: it captures three youngish people at a time when they are supposed to be navel-gazey and angsty and introspective. It is funny and weird and honest and frank and reading it was pure joy.
------------
MARSHA: By the way, is the thing you brought me a dessert or a snack?
EMILY: Both.
MARSHA: Is it something that goes with milk?
EMILY: Yes.
MARSHA: Oh, that's great, just great.
EMILY: I'm sorry, I didn't have enough money to get milk because the thing was so expensive, but I love the question about the milk.
-----------
I want to give this book to everyone I know... or maybe just every woman I know. It probably helps to know that the character Marsha is actually the author, Linda Rosenkrantz. And maybe if you are the kind of person who thinks every character in a book should be likable at all times, this is certainly not for you. But I love it for precisely that reason: it captures three youngish people at a time when they are supposed to be navel-gazey and angsty and introspective. It is funny and weird and honest and frank and reading it was pure joy.
September 10, 2015
Imagine the Sex in the City TV series transplanted to the mid-1960s and turned into a novel composed entirely of dialogue - with no plot and only three characters - and you've got Talk. Many of the books' brief chapters consist of what might charitably be called self-involved blather about the characters' psychoanalysis and interrelations. Fortunately, other chapters are chock full of witty persiflage and interesting details about social life in the swinging '60s. Overall I'd say the book is flawed and uneven, but not without charm or merit.
December 31, 2017
Curioso libro compuesto íntegramente por diálogos. Trata de un grupo de tres amigos que pasan el verano en la playa, cerca de Nueva York. Las conversaciones constantes (transcritas a partir de grabaciones) dan la frescura característica del registro oral, de manera que parece que estás continuamente cotilleando conversaciones ajenas en tu cabeza; muy curioso.
De alguna manera me recuerda a la serie Broad City, solo que unas cuantas décadas hacia atrás.
Muy recomendado. Muy actual.
August 15, 2024
Original, written 60 years ago and still relevant.
June 28, 2021
I don’t think I liked a single one of the characters (I found them all incredibly annoying and ignorant) but it did somehow keep me occupied for the exact length of my Chicago to Reno flight with room for a two hour layover in Salt Lake City (horrible airport) so two stars instead of one for Linda I guess. Would not recommend!!
May 14, 2024
I think if I was alive and had read this when it first came out my head would have exploded (3.5)
July 5, 2016
I’m so glad I stumbled upon this book. I was in the mood for a book that explored friendships and this fit the bill beautifully. As described in the summary, Linda Rosenkrantz tape-recorded herself and her art-world friends while they were summering in the Hamptons in 1965. She then compiled some of the conversations – about relationships, sex, drugs, childhood trauma, fears, silliness, and hope – to form this book.
I hesitate to recommend this book because it is unusual. There is no “plot” per se and the people can be insufferable. There is no narration and little context for the dialogue and the friendships aren’t necessarily celebrated. Nevertheless, Talk is both an interesting contemporary account of the period – conversations about LSD and SO MUCH psychoanalysis – and curiously current. The “talk” is deliciously articulate and frank, giving Girls (the dialogue made me think of that show immediately, but I think Talk comes out more favorably in the comparison) and Broad City a run for their money. I also like the deconstruction of the fourth wall toward the end of the book. The characters are a bit older (around 30) than those in many coming of age stories, which I think nicely mirrors the changing patterns of our lives in the modern world and portrays our continued change, if not growth, as we get older.
I hesitate to recommend this book because it is unusual. There is no “plot” per se and the people can be insufferable. There is no narration and little context for the dialogue and the friendships aren’t necessarily celebrated. Nevertheless, Talk is both an interesting contemporary account of the period – conversations about LSD and SO MUCH psychoanalysis – and curiously current. The “talk” is deliciously articulate and frank, giving Girls (the dialogue made me think of that show immediately, but I think Talk comes out more favorably in the comparison) and Broad City a run for their money. I also like the deconstruction of the fourth wall toward the end of the book. The characters are a bit older (around 30) than those in many coming of age stories, which I think nicely mirrors the changing patterns of our lives in the modern world and portrays our continued change, if not growth, as we get older.
August 13, 2015
MARSHA: Where is the water coming from?
EMILY: Probably the shithead's giving me a spraygun. This guy over here's got an erection.
MARSHA: All right, so tell me about the life you're going back to.
EMILY: I'm getting sprayguns like crazy here. I may be lying down any minute, I have a feeling it's warmer down there. You want to know about my life in New York?
MARSHA: Yeah, don't you?
EMILY: Well, I'm going to get the money people owe me, number one. I'm going to hit class and hit an agent. I'll see whats happening, put out feelers, find out what the story is, go up for things. Meanwhile I don't have a dime, meanwhile I'm seeing my doctor, meanwhile I'm thinking of getting a nine-to-five job along with everything else. Meanwhile I'm spending a lot of time alone.
MARSHA: You are? You're out of Sick Joan?
EMILY: Totally out of Sick Joan. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in my apartment, in my darkroom, typing up my letters. These are things I can do, that I'm interested in doing. I'm not going to run away from them, but you know I do have a fantastic facility for running away. You might call me a genius kid.
MARSHA: I well might.
EMILY: Probably the shithead's giving me a spraygun. This guy over here's got an erection.
MARSHA: All right, so tell me about the life you're going back to.
EMILY: I'm getting sprayguns like crazy here. I may be lying down any minute, I have a feeling it's warmer down there. You want to know about my life in New York?
MARSHA: Yeah, don't you?
EMILY: Well, I'm going to get the money people owe me, number one. I'm going to hit class and hit an agent. I'll see whats happening, put out feelers, find out what the story is, go up for things. Meanwhile I don't have a dime, meanwhile I'm seeing my doctor, meanwhile I'm thinking of getting a nine-to-five job along with everything else. Meanwhile I'm spending a lot of time alone.
MARSHA: You are? You're out of Sick Joan?
EMILY: Totally out of Sick Joan. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in my apartment, in my darkroom, typing up my letters. These are things I can do, that I'm interested in doing. I'm not going to run away from them, but you know I do have a fantastic facility for running away. You might call me a genius kid.
MARSHA: I well might.
November 16, 2015
This is by far the most awful book I've ever picked up. Vapid characters that normal people can't relate to. Let me give you an example:
Vincent: I'm so sad.
Emily: why?
Vincent: because that's what being alive is.
Oh come on.
I prefer to believe that all these conversations are fabricated because it pains me to think these people existed. This is not groundbreaking. It's garbage.
After racing to finish this so I can read something that doesn't melt my brain, I feel very strongly that it should never be read again. By anyone. I will not take it to a used bookstore or goodwill, because that means that some poor soul might pick it up. I don't think I have the heart to burn it so instead I will probably rip all of the pages out and recycle it.
Vincent: I'm so sad.
Emily: why?
Vincent: because that's what being alive is.
Oh come on.
I prefer to believe that all these conversations are fabricated because it pains me to think these people existed. This is not groundbreaking. It's garbage.
After racing to finish this so I can read something that doesn't melt my brain, I feel very strongly that it should never be read again. By anyone. I will not take it to a used bookstore or goodwill, because that means that some poor soul might pick it up. I don't think I have the heart to burn it so instead I will probably rip all of the pages out and recycle it.
March 30, 2016
A remarkable novel of 1965, all dialog, with a little context provided by chapter titles. Three friends close to 30 years old spend the summer on the beach in Long Island and talk, the three together or in pairs. The author did record herself and her friends for one summer, and edited a huge mass of words into this novel to capture the way people really talk. Two heterosexual women, an actor and a writer and one homosexual man, an artist; all are in analysis and sensitive to their own and each other's neuroses. At first I found their artiness and self-obsession annoying but early in the book the humor struck me and pulled me into caring enough for these characters to feel the poignancy of their efforts to draw closer through honesty, and the limits of the closeness and honesty.
November 13, 2016
I hate reality television and this book is its predecessor. Everyone is awful and self-absorbed, obsessed with analyzing themselves and each other. At times it felt like finishing this book would be impossible because their conversations were tedious, immature, and flat out annoying. I was completely surprised to learn that all three of these people were in their thirties. I was thinking they were just spoiled 18-20 year olds who spent too much time in therapy.
That being said, this book was a very interesting look into what a certain set thirty somethings in 1965 were like. Psychoanalysis played a huge role in almost all their conversations and decisions. I would hate them if I met them, but from a safe distance they're mildly tolerable.
That being said, this book was a very interesting look into what a certain set thirty somethings in 1965 were like. Psychoanalysis played a huge role in almost all their conversations and decisions. I would hate them if I met them, but from a safe distance they're mildly tolerable.
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