Joe Gould's Secret (Tie-in Edition) (Modern Library) [Hardcover]

Joseph Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Modern Library | Publication Date: April 25, 2000

Joseph Ferdinand Gould--better known as Joe Gould--was a member of one of the oldest families in Massachusetts and a graduate of Harvard, and his parents took it for granted that he would go on to medical school and become a surgeon and a distinguished civic leader, as many of his ancestors, including his father and grandfather, had. Instead, in 1916, in his middle twenties, he abruptly broke with his background and went to New York City and spent the next forty years living from hand to mouth in Greenwich Village as a kind of half outcast, half bohemian. He panhandled in Village hangouts, wore cast-off clothes, slept in flophouses or doorways, and often went hungry for days at a time. He said that he lived this way so that he could wander around the city at will, listening to people and writing down some of the astonishing things he heard them say. He had become obsessed with the idea that talk is history and that even offhand remarks may have eerie and prophetic historical import. He wrote in dime-store composition books, filling hundreds of them, and said that these books, when eventually joined together, would become an enormous book (a dozen times longer than the Bible, he estimated) that would be called An Oral History of Our Time. (Historians at Columbia University have given Gould credit for originating the term "oral history.")
        
In 1942, Joseph Mitchell, impressed by Gould's concept, wrote a profile of him for The New Yorker. Twenty-two years later, some time after Gould's death, he wrote another profile of him, and the two have been combined in Joe Gould's Secret. "When I found out Gould's secret," Mitchell said, "I was appalled, but I soon regained my respect for him, and through the years my respect has grown, though I must confess that he is still an enigma to me. Nowadays, in fact, when his name comes into my mind, it is followed instantly by another name--the name of Bartleby the Scrivener--and then I invariably recall Bartleby's haunting, horrifyingly lonely remark 'I would prefer not to.' "

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is an original. I can think of absolutely nothing like it."--Doris Lessing

"A little masterpiece of observation and storytelling."--Ian McEwan

"Joseph Mitchell is one of our finest journalists, unique in his compassion and understanding for the haunted little lost men such as Joe Gould. He transforms a forlorn, intolerably pathetic gentleman panhandler into an engaging, Dickensian orphan rogue."--Dawn Powell, The Washington Post (1965)

From the Inside Flap

Joseph Ferdinand Gould--better known as Joe Gould--was a member of one of the oldest families in Massachusetts and a graduate of Harvard, and his parents took it for granted that he would go on to medical school and become a surgeon and a distinguished civic leader, as many of his ancestors, including his father and grandfather, had. Instead, in 1916, in his middle twenties, he abruptly broke with his background and went to New York City and spent the next forty years living from hand to mouth in Greenwich Village as a kind of half outcast, half bohemian. He panhandled in Village hangouts, wore cast-off clothes, slept in flophouses or doorways, and often went hungry for days at a time. He said that he lived this way so that he could wander around the city at will, listening to people and writing down some of the astonishing things he heard them say. He had become obsessed with the idea that talk is history and that even offhand remarks may have eerie and prophetic historical import. He wrote in dime-store composition books, filling hundreds of them, and said that these books, when eventually joined together, would become an enormous book (a dozen times longer than the Bible, he estimated) that would be called An Oral History of Our Time. (Historians at Columbia University have given Gould credit for originating the term "oral history.")
        
In 1942, Joseph Mitchell, impressed by Gould's concept, wrote a profile of him for The New Yorker. Twenty-two years later, some time after Gould's death, he wrote another profile of him, and the two have been combined in Joe Gould's Secret. "When I found out Gould's secret," Mitchell said, "I was appalled, but I soon regained my respect for him, and through the years my respect has grown, though I must confess that he is still an enigma to me. Nowadays, in fact, when his name comes into my mind, it is followed instantly by another name--the name of Bartleby the Scrivener--and then I invariably recall Bartleby's haunting, horrifyingly lonely remark 'I would prefer not to.' "

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (April 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679603395
• ISBN-13: 978-0679603399
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,113 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Mitchell came to New York from North Carolina 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 New Yorker, where he remained until his death in 1996 at the age of eighty-seven. His other books include McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, My Ears Are Bent, Up in the Old Hotel, Old Mr. Flood, and Joe Gould's Secret.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars

Joe Gould's Secret -- Mitchell's Miniature Masterpiece, December 16, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (London, England via Brooklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joe Gould's Secret, 1996 (Modern Library Series) (Hardcover)

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

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mitchell is a wonderful writer, August 27, 2001

By 

M. A Netzley "mnetzley" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joe Gould's Secret (Tie-in Edition) (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

In hindsight, I am a bit shy to admit that I first learned of Joseph Mitchell through the made-for-TV version of this story. Trusting that the story would be better in print than on screen, like so many books, I was pleased to find that Mitchell's account of Joe Gould made for an excellent read. Mitchell is a superb writer in my view. I have read few authors who are able to write nonfiction in such an eloquent and moving fashion. Beyond his technical skills, Mitchell also tells the story of Joe Gould. Gould is an eccentric Bohemian living in the Village during the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Mitchell one day decides to explore Gould's life and profile him in The New Yorker. Gould's profile appears in two forms. The first is "Professor Sea Gull" which appeared in 1942, and the second is "Joe Gould's Secret" which was published in 1964. As we read through the two accounts, we see and feel Mitchell's attraction to the eccentric Gould, his frustrations, his discovery of--and about--Gould's "Oral History," and his patience and compassion as Gould's fellow man. In the end, I think we are left with a book that is much a profile of Gould as it is of Mitchell. I certainly would have enjoyed having a martini and watching these two interact one evening. Since that is not possible, I am pleased that we have Mitchell's account which is good enough to make me think about and want such opportunties. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little Man Lost In Life., June 21, 2003

By 

Michael Murphy (Glasgow, Scotland.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joe Gould's Secret, 1996 (Modern Library Series) (Hardcover)

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 Times". 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 of profiles of old-time New York characters in a New York that is no longer.