Joe Gould's Teeth

Title: Joe Gould's Teeth Author: Jill Lepore Genre:  Non-fiction Length: 151 pages (hardback) Sensitive Content: NA Rating: 3 out of 5

Joe Gould was a man obsessed with writing, race relations, Harvard, and Augusta Savage.  He was made famous by Joe Mitchell, a New York writer who profiled Gould, "Professor Sea Gull."

Gould is said to have recorded everyday conversations in hundreds of notebooks which were scattered across his travels.  His collection is called "The Oral History of Our Time."  Lepore asks, "Shouldn't someone check?" and begins her own journey to find evidence of his notebooks.

Joe Gould was a toothless madman.  He whipped his penis out at parties and measure it.  He destroyed property.  He would turn against friends who had supported him as soon as something wasn't going his way. 

The end of this book focuses on Savage, a black artist who was his perverse obession.  He pursued her, asking friends for assistance.  She pleaded for him to stop.  Lepore writes, "He said he was trying to save her, but really he was trying to drown her."

I picked up this book based on the title of Joe Gould's Teeth, not knowing what the subject really was but fascinated by the cover (and the fact that I have two in braces).  It was an easy read.  At the end, I was more curious about what happened to Augusta Savage than if Gould actually had notebooks still stored in the Northeast states.