Herbert Gold

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

American novelist (1924–2023)

title: "Herbert Gold" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1924-births", "2023-deaths", "20th-century-american-jews", "20th-century-american-male-writers", "20th-century-american-novelists", "21st-century-american-jews", "american-expatriates-in-france", "american-male-novelists", "american-people-of-russian-jewish-descent", "columbia-college,-columbia-university-alumni", "jewish-american-novelists", "novelists-from-ohio", "pen-oakland/josephine-miles-literary-award-winners", "writers-from-lakewood,-ohio", "united-states-army-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "writers-from-cleveland", "novelists-from-san-francisco", "united-states-army-soldiers"] description: "American novelist (1924–2023)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gold" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American novelist (1924–2023) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameHerbert Gold
birth_date
birth_placeLakewood, Ohio, U.S.
death_date
death_placeSan Francisco, California, U.S.
educationSorbonne
alma_materColumbia University (AB, AM)
spouse{{plainlist
* {{marriageEdith Zubrin
* {{marriageMelissa Dilworth
children5, including Ari Gold
::

| name = Herbert Gold | birth_date = | birth_place = Lakewood, Ohio, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. | education = Sorbonne | alma_mater = Columbia University (AB, AM) | spouse = {{plainlist|

| children = 5, including Ari Gold

Herbert Gold (March 9, 1924 – November 19, 2023) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and poet. Originally from Cleveland, he studied at Columbia University in New York City before serving in the U.S. Army in World War II. After the War he settled in San Francisco, California but did not become a member of the Beat Generation. A prolific author, he wrote 29 novels and works of essays, short stories and poems in his long life.

Early life

Herbert Gold was born on March 9, 1924, in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio, to a Russian Jewish family. His parents were Samuel S. and Frieda (Frankel) Gold. His father ran a fruit store and later a grocery store. Gold memorialized his hometown in his first book, Birth of a Hero (1951). He attended Taft Elementary and Lakewood High School.

Gold moved to New York City at age 17 after several of his poems had been accepted by New York literary magazines. While there, he studied philosophy at Columbia University and became affiliated with the burgeoning Beat Generation, which resulted in a lifelong friendship with writer Allen Ginsberg. His studies were interrupted when he served in the United States Army from 1943 until 1946, during World War II.

In 1946, Gold graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. degree, and M.A. degree in 1948.

Despite being intertwined with the literary history of San Francisco which greatly defined the Beat Generation, Gold did not consider himself to have ever been a member of this group of writers. In a 2017 interview with The Washington Post journalist Jeff Weiss, Gold was referred to as a "Beat-adjacent novelist."

Career

Gold won a Fulbright Scholarship (1948–1951) and moved to Paris with his new wife Edith Zubrin, and while in Paris he finished his first novel. He attended classes at the Sorbonne in Paris during his Fulbright Scholarship.

After that, he moved around as he wrote, traveling to Haiti and Detroit, and hitchhiking all over the United States. He finally settled in San Francisco, where he became a fixture in the literary scene. In 1958 Gold taught English literature at Cornell University, as Vladimir Nabokov's successor.

Genesis West (Vol. 6), was published in the Winter of 1964 with an interview of Herbert Gold by Gordon Lish.

Gold's final publication, the poetry collection Fathers Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems, co-written with Ari Gold, is forthcoming from Rare Bird Books in March 2024.

Personal life

Gold was married to writer and professor Edith Zubrin from 1948 until 1956, with their marriage ending in divorce. Gold had two daughters by this marriage, Ann and Judith. Edith Zubrin died in 2000.

Gold was married to the daughter of J. Richardson Dilworth, Melissa Dilworth, from 1968 until 1975, with whom he had three children: daughter Nina Gold and twin boys Ari Gold and Ethan Gold. After they divorced, Melissa remarried and later became involved with concert promoter Bill Graham. She died with Graham in a helicopter crash in 1991.

In contrast to many in the Beat Generation, Gold was a resident of San Francisco's more conservative, tourist-friendly Russian Hill neighborhood, where he lived in the same apartment for over 60 years.{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-beat-generation/|title=The Beat Generation|first=Jeff|last=Weiss|newspaper=Washington Post|date=June 30, 2017|accessdate=December 5, 2021}} He died there on November 19, 2023, at the age of 99.

Publications

Books

  • Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems, co-written with Ari Gold (2024), Red Bird Press.

Essays and short stories

  • A Walk on the West Side: California on the Brink, Arbor House, 1981. Stories and essays.
  • Stories of Misbegotten Love, with Don Asher (Capra Press, 1985)
  • Lovers & Cohorts: Twenty-Seven Stories (Donald I. Fine, 1986)

References

References

  1. Grimes, William. (November 20, 2023). "Herbert Gold, Novelist Who Dissected Love and Marriage, Dies at 99". [[The New York Times]].
  2. "Herbert Gold Biography".
  3. Teicholz, Tom. (August 17, 2008). "THE IMMORTAL MR. GOLD".
  4. Robert Kaiser: ''[https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/31/carnival-and-chaos-an-interview-with-herbert-gold/ Carnival and Chaos: An Interview with Herbert Gold]''. In: [[The Paris Review]], May 31, 2018.
  5. McFerrin, Linda Watanabe. (November 17, 2015). "Literary Salon: Herbert Gold, Author of When a Psychopath Falls in Love".
  6. "Herbert Gold papers, 1951-1984".
  7. https://www.amazon.com/Father-Verses-Sons-Correspondence-Poems/dp/164428426X Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  8. ''Herbert Gold''. In: Joel Shatzky, Michael Taub: ''Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook''. Greenwood Press, 1997, {{ISBN. 978-0-31329-462-4, p. 116 ff.
  9. (February 12, 2000). "UIC Professor Edith Zubrin Harnett". Chicago Tribune.
  10. (October 28, 1991). "Melissa Gold, 47, Aide For California Causes". The New York Times.
  11. (July 5, 2021). "Catching Up With Five Surviving Members Of the Beat Generation In Northern California". SFist.
  12. Gold, Herbert. (May 22, 1977). "Waiting For Cordelia". Washington Post.
  13. https://www.amazon.com/Father-Verses-Sons-Correspondence-Poems/dp/164428426X Retrieved March 20, 2024.
  14. Adams, Robert Martin. (Summer 1960). "Book Review: The Short Stories of Herbert Gold".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

1924-births2023-deaths20th-century-american-jews20th-century-american-male-writers20th-century-american-novelists21st-century-american-jewsamerican-expatriates-in-franceamerican-male-novelistsamerican-people-of-russian-jewish-descentcolumbia-college,-columbia-university-alumnijewish-american-novelistsnovelists-from-ohiopen-oakland/josephine-miles-literary-award-winnerswriters-from-lakewood,-ohiounited-states-army-personnel-of-world-war-iiwriters-from-clevelandnovelists-from-san-franciscounited-states-army-soldiers