Joe Gould's Teeth

Narrating her own work, Jill Lepore deconstructs the legend of Joe Gould in this short audiobook based on her NEW YORKER article. Gould, the subject of two previous famed NEW YORKER articles, was reported to have perpetrated a hoax by claiming to have written an unpublished nine-million-word oral history of America. Lepore argues that Gould may have actually written some or all of the oral history, though the portions that have been unearthed are not particularly engaging. More interesting is Lepore's portrait of Gould as a prejudiced, self-absorbed madman who, when not stalking women or proclaiming his greatness, relied upon the kindness of famous friends. Lepore narrates her work and when voicing Gould, employs a harsh tone and near-shouting volume, apparently simulating what Gould sounded like. Though that helps conjure up Gould, it's also a bit wearing on listeners. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

March 21, 2016
This disjointed true-life detective tale from Lepore (The Secret History of Wonder Woman) digs into the story of Joe Gould, a Greenwich Village eccentric who was introduced to the world by Joseph Mitchell’s 1942 New Yorker profile, “Professor Sea Gull.” Gould befriended a group of artist and writers that included E.E. Cummings and Ezra Pound, and told anyone who would listen that he was writing a book entitled The Oral History of Our Time. In 1964, following Gould’s 1957 death in a mental hospital, Mitchell wrote what was to be his last New Yorker profile, “Joe Gould’s Secret,” which cast doubt on the existence of the Oral History. The ever-curious and intrepid Lepore sets out to discover whether Gould did indeed ever write a word of his oral history, digging deep into New York University and Harvard archives and leafing through the more than 800 surviving pages of Gould’s diary. Lepore never finds definitive evidence, but the more she learns, the uglier the story gets—including Gould’s fascination with “race pride” and his harassment of African-American sculptor Augusta Savage. She speculates that Gould’s friends contrived his endearing persona as an attempt to save him from institutionalization. Lepore’s book, which itself originated as a New Yorker article, unfortunately comes across as thin and overstretched, and its subject is unlovable and unsympathetic.