Why read Joe Gould's Secret?

Book cover of Joe Gould's Secret

Book description

'It's a masterpiece, of course, but more than that it shows that there is some such thing as being a simple observer' Nicci French, Independent

It was 1932 when Joseph Mitchell first came across Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated vagrant of Greenwich Village. Penniless, filthy, scurrilous, charming, thieving, Joe Gould was…

Explore

Topics

Genres

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Joe Gould's Secret as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Bill Scheft

Author

This is embarrassing. Joseph Mitchell, the journalist and legendary longtime contributor to the New Yorker, is, in my opinion, the finest chronicler of 1950-80s Manhattan life who ever lived.

Here’s what’s embarrassing. I have previously devoured all of his story collections and any reprints in the New Yorker, but never read his greatest work, about the Village bohemian eccentric Joe Gould. Not anymore. As deft a piece of journalism as ever was.

From Bill's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Alan Prendergast

Author

Nobody was better than New Yorker writer Mitchell at capturing the gritty realities of the Bowery, but he met his match when he decided to profile Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated bohemian said to be working on a massive “Oral History of Our Time.”

Twenty years later, Mitchell returned to his subject and revealed the secret he’d learned shortly after the first piece was published: that Gould had perpetrated (with Mitchell’s unwitting help) one of the great literary hoaxes of all time – not out of greed or a desire for fame, but out of desperation and mental illness.

But is…

From Alan's list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars.