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Michael Gold: The People's Writer
An authoritative biography of the dean of American proletarian writers during the interwar years.
Jewish American Communist writer and cultural figure Michael Gold (1893–1967) was a key progressive author of his generation, yet today his work is too often forgotten. A novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, journalist, and editor, Gold was the leading advocate of leftist, proletarian literature in the United States between the two world wars. His acclaimed autobiographical novel Jews without Money (1930) is a vivid account of early twentieth-century immigrant life in the tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In this authoritative biography, Patrick Chura traces Gold’s story from his impoverished youth, through the period of his fame during the “red decade” of the 1930s, and into the McCarthy era, when he was blacklisted and forced to work menial jobs to support his family. In his time as a radical writer-activist, Gold courageously helped strikes, protested against war and fascism, worked for the Unemployed Councils, walked in hunger marches and May Day parades, got arrested in support of Sacco and Vanzetti, raised money for workers’ cooperatives and leftist journalism, and demonstrated against nuclear weapons and in support of fair housing, the Rosenbergs, and civil rights. This biography welcomes Gold back into cultural conversations about art, literature, politics, social change, and Jewish American life in the twentieth century.
Patrick Chura is Professor of English at the University of Akron. He is the author of Thoreau the Land Surveyor and Vital Downclassing Journeys in American Literature from Herman Melville to Richard Wright .
Jewish American Communist writer and cultural figure Michael Gold (1893–1967) was a key progressive author of his generation, yet today his work is too often forgotten. A novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, journalist, and editor, Gold was the leading advocate of leftist, proletarian literature in the United States between the two world wars. His acclaimed autobiographical novel Jews without Money (1930) is a vivid account of early twentieth-century immigrant life in the tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In this authoritative biography, Patrick Chura traces Gold’s story from his impoverished youth, through the period of his fame during the “red decade” of the 1930s, and into the McCarthy era, when he was blacklisted and forced to work menial jobs to support his family. In his time as a radical writer-activist, Gold courageously helped strikes, protested against war and fascism, worked for the Unemployed Councils, walked in hunger marches and May Day parades, got arrested in support of Sacco and Vanzetti, raised money for workers’ cooperatives and leftist journalism, and demonstrated against nuclear weapons and in support of fair housing, the Rosenbergs, and civil rights. This biography welcomes Gold back into cultural conversations about art, literature, politics, social change, and Jewish American life in the twentieth century.
Patrick Chura is Professor of English at the University of Akron. He is the author of Thoreau the Land Surveyor and Vital Downclassing Journeys in American Literature from Herman Melville to Richard Wright .
354 pages, ebook
Published December 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 2, 2023
As a radical writer, activist, humanitarian,and voice for social change in America beginning in the 1920s, Michael Gold, (Itzok Isaac Granich), was an enduring, iconic cultural presence for more than thirty years. An idealist and supporter of worker's rights, he wrote and edited American communist journals in the 20s and 30s. Jews Without Money, (a classic), is his only novel; written from a proletariat point of view, Gold tells the real story of Jewish immigrants on the lower east side of New. It is one of the best books I ever read. After reading his novel, I became interested in the life of this tell it like it is labor writer. Patrick Chura's biography exceeded all my expectations raising Michael Gold up to the top of my list, (next to Joe Hill and Daniel Ellsberg), of fascinating, praiseworthy, admirable people. I wanted to write an in depth review of this remarkable book about a valuable man, but now is not the right time for me to do that. After the cold war, Gold's work and writing was denouced. It's a real shame we missed out him.
I recommend Jews Without Money and Michael Gold: The People's Writer from the depths of all that I am.
I recommend Jews Without Money and Michael Gold: The People's Writer from the depths of all that I am.
June 27, 2024
Thank you Patrick Chura for writing this extraordinarily well-written book about this remarkable person, Michael Gold! It was transformative in so many ways.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews