Joe Gould's Secret

Reading anything by Joseph Mitchell is a goldmine of pleasure and "Joe Gould's Secret" is no different: a fascinating profile of a well-known Greenwich Village eccentric. Joe Gould was, for upwards of thirty-five years, a homeless dropout living from day to day on his wits and handouts from any sympathetic ear, whether friends or strangers. The two parts of the book, headed Professor Seagull, and Joe Gould's Secret, first appeared in the New Yorker in 1942 and 1964.The son of a medical practitioner, Harvard-educated Gould arrived in New York in 1916 and soon dismissed all thought of holding down a steady job when he had a flash of inspiration to write what he called "An Oral History of Our Times". He decided any form of regular employment would be detrimental to his thinking. Over many years, Gould would add daily to this work "in progress" ("about a dozen times as long as the bible") even when badly hung over; loading his fountain pen in the Village post office, scribbling in grubby, dog-eared school exercise books in parks, doorways, cafeterias, Bowery flophouses, subway trains and in public libraries, some of these hangouts also serving as places to doss - alternatives to the floor of an artist friend's studio or a subway station. 270 filled notebooks had been stored in numerous drops for safekeeping until the work was completed.Mitchell, intrigued by the "Oral History" idea, wrote a compassionate profile of Gould showing much patience and sensitivity in his dealings with his subject with whom he spent an inordinate amount of time. When a publisher friend of Mitchell asked to see Gould's material, with a view to publishing a book of selections, an indignant Gould declared that the material would either be published in its entirety or "not at all". Scruffy in appearance, wearing cast-offs, often unwashed for days at a time, all the time dogged by "homelessness, hunger and hangovers", ("I'm the foremost authority in the U.S.A. on the subject of doing without") Gould's norm was to hang around bars and diners in the Village cadging food, money and drinks from friends, visiting tourists and other regular contributors to the "Joe Gould Fund". He survived on a diet of fresh-air, dog-ends, strong black coffee, fried egg sandwiches and bottles of diner-bar ketchup supped off a plate. ("the only grub I know that's free of charge") Once asked what made him as he is today, Gould answered it was all down to a strong distaste for material possessions, Harvard, and years on end of bad living on cheap booze and grub "beating the living hell out of my insides".Things took a turn for the better for Gould when a secret benefactor, informed of Gould's plight and worsening health, paid for his room and board at a cheap hotel for upwards of three years. When the subsidy was suddenly cut-off without explanation, however, Gould reverted to the flophouses in the Bowery that were handy for the Village. Thereafter, Gould spiralled rapidly downwards. He died in 1957 wher

Reading anything by Joseph Mitchell is worthwhile and reading "Joe Gould's Secret", a fascinating profile of a well-known Greenich village eccentric, is well worth your time. Joe Gould was, for upwards of thirty-five years, a homeless dropout living from day to day on his wits and handouts from any sympathetic ear, whether friends or strangers, surviving on a diet of fresh air, dog-ends, strong black coffee, fried egg sandwiches and bottles of diner-bar ketchup supped off a plate. ("the only food I know that's free of charge") The two parts of the book, headed Professor Seagull, and Joe Gould's Secret, first appeared in the New Yorker in 1942 and 1964. The son of a medical practitioner, Harvard-educated Gould arrived in New York in 1916 and soon dismissed all thought of holding down a steady job when he had a flash of inspiration to write what he called "An Oral History of Our Time. Over many years, Gould would add daily to this work "in progress", all he had to show for himself, even when badly hung over; loading his fountain pen in the Village post office, scribbling in grubby, dog-eared school exercise books in public parks, doorways, cafeterias, Bowery flophouses, subway trains and in public libraries as he struggled to get his thoughts down on paper. Some of these hangouts also served as places to doss - alternatives to the floor of an artist friend's studio or a subway station. 270 filled notebooks had been stored in numerous drops for safekeeping until the work was completed. Mitchell, intrigued by the "Oral History" idea, wrote a compassionate profile of Gould showing much patience and sensitivity in his dealings with his subject with whom he spent an inordinate amount of time. When a publisher friend of Mitchell asked to see Gould's material, with a view to publishing a book of selections, an indignant Gould declared that the material would either be published in its entirety or "not at all". Scruffy in appearance, wearing cast-offs, often unwashed for days at a time, all the time dogged by "homelessness, hunger and hangovers", ("I'm the foremost authority in the U.S.A. on the subject of doing without"). Gould's norm was to hang around bars and diners in the Village cadging food, money and drinks from friends, visiting tourists and other regular contributors to the "Joe Gould Fund". Once asked what made him as he is today, Gould answered it was all down to a strong distaste for material possessions, Harvard, and years on end of bad living on cheap booze and grub "beating the living hell out of my insides". Gould died in 1957 whereupon Mitchell, who knew as much as anyone about the "Oral History", was persuaded to join a Committee set up to organise the collection of the mass of scattered material that made up "An Oral History of Our Times". Joe Gould's secret??? That's for you to discover when you read the book! If you enjoy "Joe Gould's Secret", read also "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon" and "Up In The Old Hotel", marvellous collections

Reading anything by Joseph Mitchell is worthwhile and reading "Joe Gould's Secret", a fascinating profile of a well-known Greenich village eccentric, is well worth your time. Joe Gould was, for upwards of thirty-five years, a homeless dropout living from day to day on his wits and handouts from any sympathetic ear, whether friends or strangers, surviving on a diet of fresh air, dog-ends, strong black coffee, fried egg sandwiches and bottles of diner-bar ketchup supped off a plate. ("the only food I know that's free of charge") The two parts of the book, headed Professor Seagull, and Joe Gould's Secret, first appeared in the New Yorker in 1942 and 1964. The son of a medical practitioner, Harvard-educated Gould arrived in New York in 1916 and soon dismissed all thought of holding down a steady job when he had a flash of inspiration to write what he called "An Oral History of Our Time. Over many years, Gould would add daily to this work "in progress" even when badly hung over; loading his fountain pen in the Village post office, scribbling in grubby, dog-eared school exercise books in parks, doorways, cafeterias, Bowery flophouses, subway trains and in public libraries. Some of these hangouts also served as places to doss - alternatives to the floor of an artist friend's studio or a subway station. 270 filled notebooks had been stored in numerous drops for safekeeping until the work was completed. Mitchell, intrigued by the "Oral History" idea, wrote a compassionate profile of Gould showing much patience and sensitivity in his dealings with his subject with whom he spent an inordinate amount of time. When a publisher friend of Mitchell asked to see Gould's material, with a view to publishing a book of selections, an indignant Gould declared that the material would either be published in its entirety or "not at all". Scruffy in appearance, wearing cast-offs, often unwashed for days at a time, all the time dogged by "homelessness, hunger and hangovers", ("I'm the foremost authority in the U.S.A. on the subject of doing without"). Gould's norm was to hang around bars and diners in the Village cadging food, money and drinks from friends, visiting tourists and other regular contributors to the "Joe Gould Fund". Once asked what made him as he is today, Gould answered it was all down to a strong distaste for material possessions, Harvard, and years on end of bad living on cheap booze and grub "beating the living hell out of my insides". Gould died in 1957 whereupon Mitchell, who knew as much as anyone about the "Oral History", was persuaded to join a Committee set up to organise the collection of the mass of scattered material that made up "An Oral History of Our Times". Joe Gould's secret??? That's for you to discover when you read the book! If you enjoy "Joe Gould's Secret", read also "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon" and "Up In The Old Hotel", marvellous collections of profiles of old-time New York characters in a New York that is no longer.

Joseph Mitchell was a legendary, and legendarily eccentric, writer for The New Yorker. Disparate things fascinated him: the Fulton Fish Market, gypsies, bums in the Bowery, New York's architecture, the men who worked the Hudson River. Mitchell would immerse himself in the lives of the people who held his attention, and during the 1940s and 1950s he turned out a series of New Yorker stories that are unique in American literary nonfiction."Joe Gould's Secret," the book, is an anthology of two New Yorker pieces. The first, "Professor Seagull," ran in the magazine in 1942. The second, "Joe Gould's Secret" (the article) ran in two parts in 1964. The first was an affectionate profile of a Harvard-educated down-and-outer named, of course, Joe Gould, who was a well-known and much-tolerated bum in Greenwich Village. The second piece expanded on the first, again portraying Mr. Gould, but also detailing the strange story of Mr. Gould's "Oral History of Our Times."Joe Mitchell turns his acute eye for detail (and his remarkable patience) on Joe Gould, and writes with grace and humor. Mr. Mitchell had an acute ear, as well, and let's Mr. Gould speak for himself for page after page. The pieces in this book are exquisitely crafted, and all the more poignant for Joe Mitchell's secret: Not long after publishing the last word on Joe Gould, Mr. Mitchell ceased publishing. He came to The New Yorker every day, and claimed to be working on a long piece year after year, but never ushered a word of it into print. To my knowledge, no one knows (or at least no one has said) what the piece was to be, and why Mr. Mitchell could not seem to finish it.An extraordinary book by an extraordinary writer.

Joe Gould's Secret, crafted by Mitchell from what originally ran as a Profile piece in New Yorker magazine, brings concise focus to the sprawling humanity of New York through the very-real biography of one Joe Gould. Mitchell's Gould--a real-life, Harvard-educated eccentric from the best of New England's Brahmin families--winds up as a celebrated Greenwich Village low-life and a self-described 'last of the Village Bohemians'. Gould's knack for mixing with the hodge-podge of 1940-50's Village inhabitants (including the famous ee cummings and Mitchell himself, among others) and his quixotic and never-ending scribbles and rants comprising his well-known 'Oral History' project, boils the now-long-gone New York of the era down to its core essentials in the form of a single inhabitant's day-to-day struggles for survival and immortality in an all-too-human town. In the end, as we weep for Gould, we weep for the NYC now gone...a well-executed snapshot of the era.R. Fields