3.5
Joe Gould's Secret
ByPublisher Description
Joseph Mitchell was a cornerstone of the
staff for decades, but his prolific career was shattered by an extraordinary case of writer's block. For the final thirty-two years of his life, Mitchell published nothing. And the key to his silence may lie in his last major work: the biography of a supposed Harvard grad turned Greenwich Village tramp named Joe Gould.
Gould was, in Mitchell's words, "an odd and penniless and unemployable little man who came to this city in 1916 and ducked and dodged and held on as hard as he could for over thirty-five years." As Mitchell learns more about Gould's epic
—a reputedly nine-million-word collection of philosophizing, wanderings, and hearsay—he eventually uncovers a secret that adds even more intrigue to the already unusual story of the local legend.
Originally written as two separate pieces ("Professor Sea Gull" in 1942 and then "Joe Gould's Secret" twenty-two years later), this magnum opus captures Mitchell at his peak. As the reader comes to understand Gould's secret, Mitchell's words become all the more haunting.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesJoe Gould's Secret Reviews
3.5
EngagingThought-provokingAccurateAuthoritativeBiasedEvidence-basedIn-depth analysisPersonal experienceThoroughUnbiasedWell-researchedAddresses counterargumentsBalanced perspectivesCohesiveEasy to followFlows wellLogical progressionWell-pacedAccessibleClearConciseConversationalEasy to readEngagingFunnyRelatableStylistically uniqueBigotryDeathGriefSubstance abuse
“Read for class. So, so good. Creative nonfiction at its plainest and finest.”
“joe gould is me when i was in the third grade and infuriatingly self absorbed (i still am)”
About Joseph Mitchell
Joseph Mitchell (1908–1996) left North Carolina for New York the day after the 1929 stock market crash. After eight years as a reporter and feature writer at various newspapers, he joined the staff of the
, where he remained until his death at the age of eighty-seven. His books include
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