Joe Gould only wrote about himself. Then Joe Gould died, and Joseph Mitchell revealed his secret, and then Joseph Mitchell stopped writing, and then Joseph Mitchell died.

Maybe Gould’s failure convinced Mitchell of the futility of his own writing. If Gould’s great work only lived in his head, what hope was there for Mitchell’s own novel, his achingly personal novel? So why write?

JOE GOULD AND JOSEPH MITCHELL BY MATT LEVIN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 21

The fates of Joe Gould and Joseph Mitchell were inextricably intertwi…