A review by jochno
Joe Gould's Secret by Joseph Mitchell

5.0

This really was a fantastic novella, a brief and charming read with certain sentences and turns of phrase that really stuck with me. The storytelling has a particular texture to it that is both comic and tragic. There were even things in there that it is reasonable to suggest, might have been picked up by other authors. For instance the constant need for Joe Gould to blow his nose is quite similar to Salman Rushdie's protagonist in Midnight's Children.

I think the self-publicising Joe Gould is as relevant to modern times as it was fifty years ago. Tragedy, a sense of grandeur and the pursuit of reputation appear to be so often linked, in time their pursuit can undo so many and Joe Gould personifies that in strange fashion.