Ep 118-Joseph Mitchell, Joe Gould's Secret

This week's book is actually two New Yorker profiles of a famous bohemian, writer, poet and all-around Greenwich Village eccentric. Mitchell first wrote about Gould in 1942, then wrote a much longer follow-up in the early 60's about his further dealings with Gould and his growing suspicion that the long book Gould had been working on for years didn't, in fact, exist.

We debate the ethical dimensions of the writer-subject relationship, and whether Mitchell was fair in his treatment of Gould, who clearly suffered from mental illness. We've also got an installment of South Philly News, about an aggrieved parent in a hipster coffee shop.

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