Ivan Gold

Found it at a used bookstore in Boston. This was the short story collection which launched Gold’s career and put him in Time magazine articles alongside Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow.

I’ve read the two most prominent stories, “Change of Air” and the eponymous one. Both have an engaging prose style and involve a main character in a strange psychological predicament - one nymphomaniac comes under psych treatment and becomes a puritan, the second tale features a doomed soldier who seems to derive pleasure from being the institutional whipping boy. This is the one I found especially haunting, and much recommend.… (mehr)