SOURCE: “The Proper Bohemians,” in Nation, Vol. 256, No. 20, May 24, 1993, pp. 706–08.

In the following review, Wakefield discusses several highlights of Gold's career, his relationships with various members of the New York literati, and his book Bohemia.

Herbert Gold was one of many bright presences in the literary world of New York in the fifties, his name and work often cited as part of a band of talented young achievers of that time and place that included Harvey Swados, Saul Bellow, Vance Bourjaily, George P. Elliott and Bernard Malamud. None of them had a best seller of literary acclaim like Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead) or William Styron (Lie Down in Darkness), but all produced good, fresh fictional work, thumbing their noses at the gray-flannel critics whose theme song was “the novel is dead,” crooned to the tune of lamenting violins. When Bellow broke from the pack in...