Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos ofDiane Arbus [Paperback]

Gregory Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2009

From the moment Bob Langmuir, a down-and-out rare book dealer, spies some intriguing photographs in the archive of a midcentury Times Square freak show, he knows he's on to something. It turns out he's made the find of a lifetime--never-before-seen prints by the legendary Diane Arbus. Furthermore, he begins to suspect that what he's found may add a pivotal chapter to what is now known about Arbus as well as about the "old weird America," in Greil Marcus's phrase, that Hubert's inhabited.

Bob's ensuing adventure--a roller-coaster ride filled with bizarre characters and coincidences--takes him from the fringes of the rare book business to Sotheby's, and from the exhibits of a run-down Times Square freak show to the curator's office of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Will the photos be authenticated? How will Arbus's notoriously protective daughter react? Most importantly, can Bob, who always manages to screw up his most promising deals, finally make just one big score?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the late 1950s until her death in 1971, renowned photographer Diane Arbus took pictures of oddball performers at the now-forgotten Hubert's Museum, a typical freak show in New York City's seedy Times Square. One frequent subject was Charlie Lucas, first a freak himself, later an inside talker. In 2003, Bob Langmuir, an anxiety-ridden, pill-popping, obsessive antiquarian book dealer from Philadelphia, unearthed a collection of photographs and memorabilia, including Lucas's journals and what he thought were Arbus's photos. This trove of genuine American kookiness came to dominate his life. Following Langmuir's quest—from the slums of Philadelphia to the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—as he gathered, priced and ultimately came to understand this collection, author Gibson (Gone Boy: A Walkabout), himself an antiquarian book dealer, effortlessly twists these strands together with an emotional wallop. His toil in Hubert's vineyard, Gibson writes of Langmuir, amounted to no more or less than the continuing archaeology of the old, weird America. Gibson's laser focus on Langmuir's shifting state of mind as he struggles to master his personal demons and navigate the pitfalls of his own obsession gives this story its heart and opens a window onto a lost part of the American soul. 21 b&w photos. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Hubert’s Museum was a freak show that existed since the 1930s in New York’s Times Square—an area long since cleaned up and homogenized for the general public. Hubert’s closed in 1965 and from then on existed primarily in the documents and photographs that were put into storage. But Hubert’s seedy past remains culturally significant because it offers a peephole view of a less-sanitized America. Also, it was one significant artist’s portal and first foray into the world of freaks—photographer Diane Arbus. In 2003, quirky collector Bob Langmuir unearthed some of Hubert’s pieces and soon realized that he was sitting on a batch of unknown Arbus prints. His journey to get them authenticated by Arbus’ estate and appraised by various auction houses—during which he got divorced and was institutionalized—makes up the bulk of this fascinating account, which takes readers into the backroom dealings of collectors, art galleries, and museums. How the Arbus photographs are tied to Hubert’s and what ultimately becomes of them are the central mysteries that will keep readers raptly engaged. --Jerry Eberle --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (April 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156033089
• ISBN-13: 978-0156033084
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,060,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hubert is only one part of the drama, May 3, 2008

By 

Alen Macweeney - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus (Hardcover)

Like dust to a vacuum cleaner, and sucked in faster than I could think to this gripping story of Bob and other protagonists and characters of this marvelous book. Knowing some of them personally added another dimension for me, but the detail of Diane Arbus's intimate perception and insertion into the lives of her subjects brought a deeper dimension to portrait photography. And then of course is Bob, the art dealer in his trader world, with potential marks and hopes of patrons, where the real money is in the art world, to the gatekeepers of that realm posing or installed as museum curators. The book is a tantalizing thriller with insight.

Alen MacWeeney

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An encounter with the shadow side..., June 21, 2008

By 

Kathleen Valentine "So Many Books, So Little ... (Gloucester, MA, United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus (Hardcover)

I suspect that if Carl Jung were alive today he would have gladly contributed a blurb to Gibson's book. One of the things today's contemporary culture has an ambivalence toward is what Jung referred to as our shadow-side, the dark underbelly of consciousness that drives our obsessions, fascinations, perversions, and behaviors in ways we don't always want to own. Diane Arbus was a photographer who was keenly attuned to the shadow in all of us and especially in the culture of her era. In Hubert's Freaks, Gibson has tuned into that strange, dark, fascinating and alluring realm --- both through the subject matter and through the character of his hero/anti-hero Bob Langmuir, a man with more than a nodding acquaintance with his own shadow-side.

In addition to the main story of how Langmuir came to acquire the Arbus photos, his trials and tribulations in authenticating them, and the circuitous route to making a profit from them, there is the equally fascinating side stories of the people of Hubert's Museums. The "freaks", some with their own physical anomalies, others with an ability to tantalize the shadow-side of Americans willing to trade 25 cents for a few minutes in their presence.

This is the sort of book that you start wondering what you will find and finish wondering where you have been --- a world of freaks and the photos that immortalize them from a time that seems long ago but is as close as the world wide web. Fascinating.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Book, April 27, 2008

By 

John Windle "John Windle" (SF, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus (Hardcover)

Greg Gibson is a superb writer and has succeeded in combining the multifarious strands of a twisted plot to give us a riveting account of a fascinating episode in the life of an American icon. A must-read -- I finished in one flight from NY to SF. Buy it now and give copies to any friends who can read. They will kiss your feet.