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Joe Gould's Teeth

Jill Lepore

3.48 · Rating details · 855 ratings · 179 reviews

From New Yorker staff writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore, the dark, spellbinding tale of her restless search for the missing longest book ever written, a century-old manuscript called "The Oral History of Our Time."

Joe Gould's Teeth is a Poe-like tale of detection, madness, and invention. Digging through archives all over the country, Lepore unearthed evidence that ...more

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published April 18th 2017 by Vintage (first published May 17th 2016)

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Feb 25, 2016 Candace rated it liked it · review of another edition

New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell wrote highly popular pieces about New York City oddballs and eccentrics. Joe Gould was the subject of two profiles, one in 1942 and another in 1964. What made Gould interesting to Mitchell was his "The Oral History of Our Time," a mammoth project allegedly nine million words long. When Mitchell returned to Gould in the 60's, he ruled that the Oral History had never existed, and by that time Gould was dead and could not argue otherwise. After the story came out ...more

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Nov 16, 2016 Jason Pettus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: npr-worthy, contemporary, smart-nerdy, personal-favorite, nonfiction

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Joe Gould's Teeth is a fascinating little novella-sized project from Harvard professor and New Yorker staffer Jill Lepore, which started life because of an earlier article from that same magazine -- an article in 1942, in fact, a character profile of an eccentric bohemian named Joe Gould who had been known (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Joe Gould's Teeth is a fascinating little novella-sized project from Harvard professor and New Yorker staffer Jill Lepore, which started life because of an earlier article from that same magazine -- an article in 1942, in fact, a character profile of an eccentric bohemian named Joe Gould who had been known and beloved all over Greenwich Village for decades at that point, who had been spending years compiling a Henry-Darger-like million-word "oral history of our times" that in reality was just a transcript of every sentence he had ever heard another person in public speak out loud over the course of his entire adult life. The piece became a sensation, an early example of the "New Journalism" which would become such a force in America after World War Two, written with a kind of humor and empathy that made millions around the nation fall in love with the adorably quirky Gould; so these same people were of course heartbroken when the journalist in question, Joseph Mitchell, wrote a follow-up piece in 1964 after Gould's death, admitting that he now thought the oral history to be a nonexistent project that had been completely made up in the mind of the severely mentally ill Gould.

Fifty years later, Lepore became fascinated with knowing whether Mitchell's assumption was true, whether any of this supposed thousand-volume oral history actually did ever exist; this book, then, is partly a record of that national search, partly a new and deep biographical portrait of Gould himself, based on the massive amount of academic research Lepore did for this book (of its 235 pages, nearly a hundred are nothing but bibliographical notes), and partly a confessional personal essay by Lepore on why she became so obsessed with the subject in the first place, of what she thinks it says about her that she gave over an entire six months of her life to investigating the mystery. And does she ever find this hidden treasure trove of material that so many others have tried and failed to track down? Well, I'll let the book answer that in detail (the tl;dr version -- kind of but not really); much, much more interesting, though, is how the research itself presents a much more nuanced and tragic portrait of Gould than the "lovable eccentric" he was optimistically portrayed as by the Early Modernist writers who used to spend time with him, including people like EE Cummings and Ezra Pound.

As Lepore shows, Gould was in fact very clearly a schizophrenic psychopath, unmedicated and an alcoholic to boot, with a violent obsession for the subject of "race-mixing" (he was a proponent of eugenics and of banning mixed-race relationships, but carried a debilitating crush on black artist Augusta Savage for literally decades, and stalked her to the point of police intervention), someone who regularly turned on the very people who tried to help him, a lice-covered egomaniac and OCD victim who sent literally thousands of letters to his self-professed "enemies" and would sometimes call them on the phone in the middle of the night for weeks and months on end. Most people who have been in the arts for any significant period of time will know a person just like this, someone you gingerly want to help and who has a spark of fascinating creativity at their core, yet lacks almost any skills at socialization and eventually just becomes an albatross around your neck from the act of trying to help them; and that's what makes a book like this so interesting and readable, a portrait of the sorta ur-example of someone like this, and the formerly secret history of how the famous artists around him dealt with him at the time. It comes strongly recommended in that spirit, a quick little read that packs a wallop of thought-provoking ideas.

Out of 10: 9.5 ...more

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May 18, 2016 Book Riot Community added it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-books-liberty-s-recs

The story of Joe Gould is wildly interesting. He was an eccentric man, friends with famous artists, including Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. He believed himself to be the most brilliant historian of his time, and he claimed to write down everything that was ever said to him, and boasted of having written a nine million word manuscript. Reporter Joseph Mitchell later claimed in a New Yorker article that the manuscript to be a figment of a madman’s imagination. Joe Gould’s Teeth is a ...more

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Jun 04, 2016 Patricia rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The whole time I was reading this book, I kept thinking that this story would be better served as an article in The New Yorker. It fits naturally as follow-up to the first New Yorker articles that profiled Joe Gould's effort to write “The Oral History of Our Time.”So I wasn't surprised when I later learned that a version of this story was published in the July 27th, 2015 issue of The New Yorker. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough substance here to justify a book. The most frustrating aspect ...more

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Feb 08, 2016 Greg Zimmerman rated it liked it · review of another edition

Okay, but hardly at all about the search for the manuscript and more a straight bio of Gould. Was hoping for more of the former and less of the latter.

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Nov 22, 2018 James Murphy rated it really liked it

Joe Gould is famous as a New York City bohemian and eccentric of the mid-20th century. Sometimes he was homeless and sometimes he was hospitalized for various mental issues. But he was known for constantly writing a book--he considered himself a historian--written in hundreds of school composition books, some carried around with him, others stored in locations he kept to himself. Some parts he lost and apparently wrote over and over again. He called this the longest book ever written, An Oral Joe Gould is famous as a New York City bohemian and eccentric of the mid-20th century. Sometimes he was homeless and sometimes he was hospitalized for various mental issues. But he was known for constantly writing a book--he considered himself a historian--written in hundreds of school composition books, some carried around with him, others stored in locations he kept to himself. Some parts he lost and apparently wrote over and over again. He called this the longest book ever written, An Oral History of Our Time.

He was known in New York City literary circles. He knew such notables as editor Maxwell Perkins (who actually looked at his writing as a candidate for publication) and critic Malcolm Cowley, who published a chapter of it in 1923. E. E. Cummings knew Gould well and wrote poems about him, including the following sonnet:

little joe gould has lost his teeth and doesn't know where
to find them(and found a secondhand set which click)little
gould used to amputate his appetite with bad brittle
candy but just(nude eel)now little joe lives on air

Harvard Brevis Est for Handkerchief read Papernapkin no laundry
bulls likes People preferring Negroes Indians Youse
n.b. ye twang of little joe(yankee)gould irketh
sundry who are trying to find their minds(but never had any to lose)

and a myth is as good as a smile but little joe gould quote oral
history unquote might(publishers note)be entitled a wraith's
progress or mainly awash while chiefly submerged or an amoral
morality sort-of-aliveing by innumerable kind-of-deaths

(Amerique Je T'Aime and it may be fun to be fooled
but it's more fun to be more to be fun to be little joe gould)

Most famously he was acquainted with The New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell who wrote extensively about him and who, after Gould's death, led a search for his great oral history. He concluded that it never existed. Now Gould's story has been taken up by Harvard historian Jill Lepore who applies all her research skills in poring over every scrap of Gould's story still contained in letters, diaries, and notebooks he left in various places. Her judgement is that there was a huge oral history collected in hundreds of those composition books. She has seen a few that can be traced today. Her story is a fascinating one. I believe she began the book in search of the truth about the oral history, but in the end it struck me more as biography than historical work. ...more

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Jun 06, 2016 Ann rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, language-books

I started this book with great anticipation. I had read "Joe Gould's Secret" by Mitchell and had become fascinated by the story of this self-proclaimed "oral historian", who claimed to be writing a complete history of everything anybody had ever said. This type of grandiose undertaking is usually associated with psychopathology, and there were indeed plenty of indications in Mitchell's two New Yorker stories about Joe Gould that would indicate this was not your run-of-the-mill Greenwich Village I started this book with great anticipation. I had read "Joe Gould's Secret" by Mitchell and had become fascinated by the story of this self-proclaimed "oral historian", who claimed to be writing a complete history of everything anybody had ever said. This type of grandiose undertaking is usually associated with psychopathology, and there were indeed plenty of indications in Mitchell's two New Yorker stories about Joe Gould that would indicate this was not your run-of-the-mill Greenwich Village bohemian. But apart from the two New Yorker profiles, I had not been able to find out much more. So I was delighted to find this book.

Jill Lepore's basic question was : Was Mitchell's assertion in his 1964 New Yorker profile that the Oral History had never existed, correct? How could that be reconciled with the testimonials from several of JG's friends who stated that they had seen or read parts of it? Had it been destroyed? Or did parts of it survive in yellowed archives, as yet untouched by scholars? So she set out to do some sleuthing, in the hopes of tracking down the Oral History.

What I liked about the book was the additional background on Joe Gould's sad life. Whereas Mitchell had described him as a lovable eccentric, the reality was much sadder : mental illness, inability to keep a job, and a history of stalking and harassing an African-American sculptress involved in the Harlem Renaissance. Not cute, downright nasty, as a matter of fact! I also learned more about the anonymous benefactress whose support kept JG fed and clothed for years, until she found out that he didn't really qualify as a distressed artist.

What disappointed me about the book was that there was no closure, and that I ultimately didn't have the impression that the research had been particularly thorough or long-lived. Did the author or did she not find traces of the Oral History? It appears that she did not- it would have been a major literary coup if she had- and so the book ends up being nothing more than a rather slim biography of someone whose main claim to fame was as a proto-hipster in the artistic circles of New York in the 20-30-40s. ...more

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Oct 10, 2016 Evann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

didnt know what to expect. total cover borrow (library). a moderately interesting person from the past. the myth and the truth as far as jill could find it. really enjoyed it. will be reading more of her writing for sure.

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Apr 10, 2016 Melissa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Fantastic. Reminds me of Janet Malcolm. Bizarre true life mystery w/ archives & libraries-- what more do you need?

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Jan 17, 2017 Morgan Paukner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

1. Joe Mitchell was not a good person.
2. Joe Gould made me both love and hate him.
3. I'm very curious about what Gould would be diagnosed with today.
-Overall, so interesting.

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Jun 22, 2017 Simon Robs rated it liked it · review of another edition

Skreeek! So goes the lore'd legend "Professor Seagull" Joe Gould as he struts his stuff around the pages of The New Yorker's mag/writer Joseph Mitchell's pieces on this wackier-than-life figure of the first half 20th century and, now too in JL's re-opening account of tracking down the facts, little though they be, yet sufficient to close the file for posterity of "The Oral History of Our Time."

Joe Gould was on to something, maybe a lot of little somethings accrued to his time before widespread ...more

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Jun 26, 2016 Marks54 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Harvard historian and contributor to the New Yorker magazine Jill Lepore has written a dark and somewhat disturbing investigation into recent American cultural history. A major punchline of this investigation is that one should not always take what one reads in the New Yorker, especially about pop culture "icons", at face value. Making sense of this dilemma is what makes "Joe Gould's Teeth" such an interesting book.

Joe Gould was a street historian of sorts which lived in Greenwich Village from ...more

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May 18, 2016 Angus McKeogh rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The premise sounded so interesting yet the book was extremely boring. Ostensibly it's about some prolific writer that was supposedly recording an Oral History of the World (which was actually more his personal interactions with other people) that had run out to hundreds of thousands of pages. However, upon reading the book, it's about a certified insane individual that claims he's doing all this writing (and apparently hardly writes at all) who happens to somehow be friendly with some literary ...more

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May 27, 2017 Edward Sullivan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-nonfiction, biography, psychology, writers

A fascinating investigation into the life and work of a mentally unhinged historian likely afflicted with hypergraphia whose unrealized goal was to do for history what Whitman did for poetry.

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Sep 08, 2019 Jim Yarin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: narrative-nonfiction, history, biography, historiography

I plowed through this, and because end notes are a pain in the butt to read while reading the main text, I later skimmed the notes to see what further information I could glean from them. This book is not just a sensational story about an oddball character-- I think you will find those reviews elsewhere without a problem--it is also a study of the historian's quest. Let me expand on that. Lepore makes a point to share with the reader the unusually rich supply of source materials she was able to I plowed through this, and because end notes are a pain in the butt to read while reading the main text, I later skimmed the notes to see what further information I could glean from them. This book is not just a sensational story about an oddball character-- I think you will find those reviews elsewhere without a problem--it is also a study of the historian's quest. Let me expand on that. Lepore makes a point to share with the reader the unusually rich supply of source materials she was able to find on her subject, more than adequately underscored by her copious end notes.
This is the rare mix of a micro-historiography; that is, the history of a narrow subject matter (whether Gould's opus humongous actually existed and might still be out there somewhere), which is the micro-history, and the thorough and documented search and analysis for an honest answer of what really happened (the historiography). The first history I've read where the author tells us she got on her bicycle and raced down to the archives to check out a lead! The search puts author and subject in a strange and strained relationship (mind you, Gould died many years before Lepore wrote her book), and when set against the subject's own misplacement (of a realistic life goal, civility, self-respect, and even his personal things-- including his teeth) makes for a multi-dimensional inquiry into the meaning and completion of a quest. Bravo for Lepore.

I do not know who, Lepore or an editor, was responsible for the final editorial decisions in this book, but I'd like to imagine it was Lepore, and thank God for that! The writing is nearly flawless (in one case, I could not figure out who "Moe" was, and either I missed an early mention (I had put the book down for a bit), or it was moved from text to footnote), and would not be as wonderful if some editor tried too hard to make order out of something that needs some disorder and needs some needless repetition.

As for the lost teeth, Lepore doesn't say so, but I see that detail of her subject's life as an example of the never-ending search for historic details. In other words, if Lepore only continued, she would surely come across those lost teeth at some point. Alternatively, the teeth could serve sundry other metaphors; now discuss. ...more

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Nov 01, 2019 Daryl rated it liked it

Shelves: female-author, nonfiction

I picked this up somewhat randomly at a random bookstore in Oregon during a recent visit. The cover captured my attention, and I recognized Lepore's name, as she wrote a book about Wonder Woman that I purchased as a gift a few years ago (I've always meant to read that one but have never gotten around to it). The jacket copy made it seem compelling -- here was this bizarre Modern-literature-adjacent figure I had never heard of, though I'm pretty familiar with that period in English literature. ...more

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Jun 11, 2017 Julia Fine rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Jill Lepore’s Joe Gould’s Teeth is that beautiful brand of history that reads less like a scholarly article and more like a detective report. Following the man better known as Professor Seagull, Lepore sets out to answer a question that has eluded the public since the notion of Gould’s “longest book in the world” arose. An eccentric Harvard alumnus and vagabond, Gould in the early 20th century claimed to have written the longest book on earth, an oral history attempting to capture ordinary life. Jill Lepore’s Joe Gould’s Teeth is that beautiful brand of history that reads less like a scholarly article and more like a detective report. Following the man better known as Professor Seagull, Lepore sets out to answer a question that has eluded the public since the notion of Gould’s “longest book in the world” arose. An eccentric Harvard alumnus and vagabond, Gould in the early 20th century claimed to have written the longest book on earth, an oral history attempting to capture ordinary life. However, whether the book existed is unclear. With her characteristic wit and scholarly vigour, Lepore scours archives in order to search for a century-old oral history that may not even be real.
If we do not get bogged down in the paradoxical nature of evaluating contemporary historians, Jill Lepore is unequivocally one of the best. The book is self-aware and witty, and her intense compulsion for research stands alone. Yet, the book reads less like a full-length manuscript and more like an overengorged thinkpiece. It jumps straight into discussion of Gould’s manuscript, without stopping to explain why this eccentric fellow is a worthy figure to whom to devote a whole book. It is not until over halfway through that we learn that Gould invented the concept of oral history, a fact left relatively untouched by Lepore. Furthermore, the book, like Gould, is chaotic. While this seems intentional at parts, at times the constant shift between third and first person in the same paragraphs obfuscates Lepore’s smartest points. And the ending, clearly meant to be a poignant comment on the nature of history, falls flat as Lepore vacillates wildly between that particular New Yorker brand of forced sentimentality and academic distance.
The strength of this book lies not so much in the history but rather in the interludes Lepore gives of the process for searching for Gould’s oral history. This book is an incredible read for future and current historians alike, if only to get a sense of how Lepore does her work. As the book would have immensely benefited from a redraft, those looking to actually read a fully-fledged history-- a well-written and organized one-- should perhaps look elsewhere. ...more

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Aug 17, 2016 Chance Lee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: true-story

Joe Gould was a man obsessed. In the 1930s and 40s, he wanted to record everything ever said in a collection called "The Oral History of Our Time." "Joe Gould's Teeth" by Jill Lepore begins as Lepore's attempt to find the hundreds of notebooks rumored to contain the History. The History was never confirmed to have existed. "Shouldn't someone check?" Lepore asks.

Gould was made famous when New Yorker writer Joe Mitchell profiled Gould in the magazine in 1942. The Joe Gould paradox reminds me of a ...more

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Jun 18, 2017 Dr. Lloyd E. Campbell rated it liked it · review of another edition

If you view history as social forces, random encounters, unexpected outcomes and an account of human experience as a combination of behavior, what we tell ourselves about our behavior and why we do what we think we are doing--this book's for you. If you buy the idea history is the result of decisions made by great men, this book will present an opposing view. Good but not great. By the way, not until the epilogue is the book title explained.

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Apr 14, 2017 Sharon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I found this to be an interesting book about a character that I had never heard of.

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Jul 23, 2019 Jessica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Two separate thoughts:
1) I’ve heard about Joe Gould for a long time now so it was good to finally get some backstory and explanation here.
2) I wish I could write the way a New Yorker writer writes. Jill Lepore is great.

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May 26, 2018 Vincent DiGirolamo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: female-authors, non-fiction, 2018

Sad. Make smee tink of the Jg's in my own life: Messrs. Quam and Appollo. A twisted brilliance gone to seed. Kindness required. Exasperation guaranteed. Yet why bother wit delusions if they cant be grand? JL wandered into a cul-de-sac, really, but got a good book out of it nonetheless. A sparkling sanity she has, which really comes down to finishing what you start. Plus there's the cutest pix on the inside flap, which is worth half a star at least. Tink I'll apply for a Guggie like Prof. ...more

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Aug 17, 2018 Mark Feltskog rated it it was amazing

For some reason, but none I can explain, Joe Gould has endured as an interest of mine. This book relieves me of that burden, for which I am grateful to Professor Lepore.

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Jun 25, 2019 Scott Diamond rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: f-literature

Not sure what all the interest is in Joe Gould. Found the book somewhat interesting for first half but then mostly lost interest.

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Jun 30, 2016 Todd Stockslager rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Review Title: Long history short

Well, one thing can be said for certain about Joe Gould's teeth--Lepore tells his biography in a few short and small pages. I read the whole thing--150 small format pages plus footnotes--in a couple of hours. The history is longer than the biography.

The History in this case is Gould's "Oral History of the World", which was much written about, well documented in rumor, long awaited--but never published and possibly (probably?) never existed at all! Gould was a Review Title: Long history short

Well, one thing can be said for certain about Joe Gould's teeth--Lepore tells his biography in a few short and small pages. I read the whole thing--150 small format pages plus footnotes--in a couple of hours. The history is longer than the biography.

The History in this case is Gould's "Oral History of the World", which was much written about, well documented in rumor, long awaited--but never published and possibly (probably?) never existed at all! Gould was a knockabout academic noted mostly for racist eugenic theories then popular in some quarters who was expelled from Harvard but applied for prestigious jobs and grants nonetheless, and who claimed to have been recording overheard conversations of ordinary people from about 1912 through 1942 when he was profiled in The New Yorker. He claimed to have hundreds of notebooks of longhand conversation, much of it obscene, that would fill many large volumes of his Oral History (possibly the longest lasting part of his work is the term itself, which he may have been the first to use). But after his death in 1957, no manuscript or even notebooks beyond about a dozen in various collections of papers were ever found, and in 1964 the writer of the earlier New Yorker piece wrote a follow up concluding that he believed the history never existed at all!

Lepore picked up the thread as a professor of biographical writing at Gould's erstwhile alma mater when she used the New Yorker pieces as assigned reading and got hooked on the search for more. Her investigation covered many well-worn trails (he was friends with several famous writers like E. E. Cummings and Ezra Pound) that mostly dead-ended. As it turns out, Gould's story is mostly very sad; his academic work was often virulently racist, his mental state was often fragile, his behavior erratic, rude, and at times possibly criminal (more than one former friend sought police protection from his persistent attempts to communicate or borrow money that became harassing or worse), and his life ended under uncertain circumstances in a New York state mental hospital noted later for its brutal treatment of its patients.

Lepore has to rely on circumstantial evidence to piece together some of the biographical bits, including possibly the saddest part: Gould's friendship and then falling out with the African-American sculpture Augusta Savage. They met and became friends over shared interests at a public poetry reading in the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. Their engagement and her rejection may have been figments of his fractured imagination (she married another man three months later), but his meetings, letters, calls, and attendance at her public art exhibits were constant, increasingly bitter, unwanted and unrequited, and eventually lead to threatened police protection. How her career careened from hard-fought success (she was lauded as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in the arts) to bitter failure (as a black woman in her time she was more than once rejected for public patronage and many of her works while critically acclaimed have since been lost or destroyed) to a nearly anonymous end is really the emotional thread of Lepore's story.

Did the Oral History exist? Was Gould an eccentric genius or a criminally insane sociopath? The ascension of oral history as a valuable tool for historical and social science research is possibly at least in part due to his notoriety and persistence, if not to his finished work. And yes he lost his teeth--both his real teeth and the dentures that replaced them, both of which are key elements of a biography that reads at times like a strange Kafka-esque modern novel with no redeeming plot line or characters. And perhaps that is the long and short of his story. ...more

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May 01, 2016 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Lepore tackles a difficult subject in this book: a thoroughly unlikeable man - racist, abusive, anti-Semitic, harasser of women - and his unfindable manuscript, simultaneously hailed as potentially one of the greatest works of history and dismissed as being unevenly written, where it was written at all. The book is being marketed as Lepore's search for the manuscript, but it's more about her can't-look-away curiosity for the man. She does an excellent job, I think, of treating Gould like a human Lepore tackles a difficult subject in this book: a thoroughly unlikeable man - racist, abusive, anti-Semitic, harasser of women - and his unfindable manuscript, simultaneously hailed as potentially one of the greatest works of history and dismissed as being unevenly written, where it was written at all. The book is being marketed as Lepore's search for the manuscript, but it's more about her can't-look-away curiosity for the man. She does an excellent job, I think, of treating Gould like a human being, even though he was a pretty shitty one.

I really appreciated Lepore's presence in the book. It helped me to understand what it is like to try to reconstruct a life from, mainly, what the subject wrote. In devoting a large portion of the book to Augusta Savage - an influential Harlem Renaissance sculptor who Gould obsessed over, stalked, and harassed for years - we see a contrast between this sort of project when a subject is an insatiable writer (Gould) and when they are so invested in their privacy that they destroy their own papers & work (Savage). "It has taken me a very long time, my whole life, to learn that the asymmetry of the historical record isn't always a consequence of people being silenced against their will. Some people don't want to be remembered, or heard, or saved. They want to be left alone."

I did feel, however, like there were times that Lepore filled in gaps by telling us what she thinks happened, without always providing us with concrete evidence or even her own reasoning. Mostly I felt like I understood why she made those decisions and that she marked those places so that we readers know when she's doing it, but there were times when I wanted more from her. Here's Lepore at her best, explaining why she thinks what she thinks and, at the same time, illuminating for us another of the pitfalls of biographical research: "I think Savage left New York to get away from Joe Gould. But - and here's the trouble - from the moment I first learned about her, I knew that my likeliest error would be in thinking I understood Augusta Savage, as if she were me, when, really, I hardly know her at all."

To sum up, it's good, and if it sounds interesting to you, go on and pick it up. I've shared two of my favorite quotes from the book, so let me share the third, which I have apparently turned into a poem. It comes after a story about a Baptist preacher who tries to baptize a (possibly unwilling) woman.
He says, "Tell these people what you believe,"
and she answers, "I do believe this man's trying to drown me."
Lepore follows,
"I began to consider this a story that Savage told not only to Gould,
but also about him,
and about how she was wise to him,
wise, even,
to what white modernist
writers and artists
were doing to the
writers and artists
of the Harlem Renaissance.
He said he was trying to save her,
but really he was trying to drown her."

Won in a Goodreads giveaway.

P.S. I don't think it's coincidental that my three favorite quotes were all about Savage. I wonder if Lepore feels the same way. I would love to see her take on Savage, but in the meantime (though I won't be holding my breath), it's time for me to do some research of my own. ...more

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Sep 04, 2016 Sue Smith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2016

Joe Gould’s Teeth is really just a research paper that’s been published into book form. It’s essentially thoughts and the tedious digging that you have to do in order to try and get information about an obscure personage or event that has dissolved into the historical fabric of time.

So who is Joe Gould?

The main interest behind Joe Gould is that he was developing an Oral History - writing down all the things seen and said by the commoners or people that weren’t historically significant but never Joe Gould’s Teeth is really just a research paper that’s been published into book form. It’s essentially thoughts and the tedious digging that you have to do in order to try and get information about an obscure personage or event that has dissolved into the historical fabric of time.

So who is Joe Gould?

The main interest behind Joe Gould is that he was developing an Oral History - writing down all the things seen and said by the commoners or people that weren’t historically significant but never the less lived the times. It’s history written for the masses by the masses unlike the usual historical writings we glean through personages of importance who are far from common, nor have simply common experiences as a result. A truly curious and interesting viewpoint and it excited a fair number of philosophers and studied individuals of the time.

Joe Gould was an eccentric. He was a talker. He was a prodigious writer. He told everyone that would listen, about his concepts and the progress he was making on his Oral history. People read snippets or were entertained with lively discussions about the latest journal entires. Joe Gould was undoubtedly celebrated but, somehow, no one ever got to see the whole thing. His ‘queer family streak’ becomes more and more pronounced, his eccentricities make normal living impossible and in the end, Nearly everything Gould held in his hands slipped away and this multi-thousand page manuscript of the Oral History is missing.

So did the Oral History exist in the first place?

Undoubtedly an interesting research - it’s also a sad look at how mental illness can sweep away a person to the periphery of life. It’s still a dirty kept secret in the closets of the world. People slip through the cracks far too easily and mental illness is oft times a slow quick sand that evades the notice of others until that person is far too immersed in it to do much, if anything for them. Early attempts to handle mental illness were stabs in the dark without much thought to the patients themselves and many practices were simply barbaric.

Joe Gould existed. Samples of Joe Gould’s writings have survived. So it’s possible that they did truly exist. For a time.

This is a relatively quick read and I’d recommend it if for anything other reason than for the persistence of the diligent research of the author. It gives pause to thought and has made me want to write my own history before I vanish into the folds of history.
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Jun 09, 2018 Stephanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A really weird story very well written with some interesting facts about the Harlem Renaissance artists, publishers, E E Cummings and Ezra Piund during the 30s and 40s.

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Sep 04, 2016 Rob Neyer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So this book, a much-expanded version of Lepore's New Yorker article, is right in my sweet spot. And I think it benefits from its brevity; I thought Lepore's book about Wonder Woman (for example) just couldn't bear the weight of its length. But this is a great and quick read, and I enjoyed literally every page.

There is one little thing that bothers me, though ... SPOILER ALERT ... It's not really the book I thought I was getting. It's really a short biography of Joe Gould, with goodly bits of So this book, a much-expanded version of Lepore's New Yorker article, is right in my sweet spot. And I think it benefits from its brevity; I thought Lepore's book about Wonder Woman (for example) just couldn't bear the weight of its length. But this is a great and quick read, and I enjoyed literally every page.

There is one little thing that bothers me, though ... SPOILER ALERT ... It's not really the book I thought I was getting. It's really a short biography of Joe Gould, with goodly bits of Joe Mitchell and (especially) Augusta Savage sprinkled throughout. Which is okay; makes for a hell of a good read. It's just not the book I thought I was getting; the book the flap copy describes: an account of the author's search for Gould's legendary Oral History of Our Time. Oh, Lepore does write about her search. But she seems to have lost interest in the physical manifestations of Gould's obsession. Despite Mitchell's conclusion (in his famous story, "Joe Gould's Secret") that the Oral History never actually existed, Lepore does find numerous references to people who claimed to have read chunks of the Oral History, and some bits were even published. And yet, somehow Lepore never gives any accounting of the material she located. And somewhat astoundingly, she writes in the Epilogue: "I spoke on the telephone to an old man in a faraway land. He told me he had some of Gould's notebooks. I believed him. I did not call again."

???????

I just don't get it. It's one thing to let the mystery live ... except Mitchell already did that, more than 50 years ago. After "Joe Gould's Secret" was published, people told Mitchell that no, the Oral History really did exist and they had proof. But he doesn't seem to have been interested. He'd written his story and that was that. Lepore has taken Gould's story one step farther ... but not, for some reason, two steps. So that work remains for some enterprising researcher(s). Because it seems the truth about the Oral History is still out there, waiting. ...more

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Jun 24, 2016 Scotchneat rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: outcasts, non-fiction

I'm surprised I had never heard of Joe Gould - friend/pest to ee cummings, Ezra Pound, WC Williams... and the subject of 2 famous profiles by Joseph Mitchell in the New Yorker.

In life, Gould was a genius, a madman, a bohemian, a stalker, harmless, aggressive, racist, free thinking, a lech, generous. He was involved in Eugenics research. He walked across most of Canada.

As an adult, he was almost always poor and always focused on his life's work: An Oral History of Our Time. This work was ...more

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About Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore

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Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson ...more