by Jill Lepore
First published 2016
For decades, a legendary manuscript vanished after its eccentric author's death. Now, a dogged historian digs into the madness and obsession that led to its concealment. From bestselling author Jill Lepore comes a Poe-like tale of detection, as she unearths the shocking secrets behind Joe Gould's lost masterpiece, "The Oral History of Our Time" - a sprawling, nine-million-word chronicle that was either the greatest literary achievement of the 20th century...or a figment of its author's imagination.
Genres: biography, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: New York (N.Y.)
235 pages · Hardcover · Knopf