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Herb Gold @ 100: A Tribute to a Life in Letters
A celebration of the life of San Francisco literary icon Herbert Gold, and the release of his final book, Father Verses Sons, A Correspondence in Poems, published by Rare Bird Lit. Ari Gold and Ethan Gold, who co-authored the book with their father, will be in conversation with Peter Maravelis – the events director of City Lights Booksellers. They will read poems from the book and share stories about Herb, a Beat Generation author and journalist who made San Francisco his literary home for 63 years until he passed away at age 99 last November. The reading will take place on what would have been Herb’s 100th birthday at the North Beach Public Library. The celebration will then move immediately over to Vesuvio — right across the alley from Herb’s beloved City Lights — for refreshments and a book signing.
About Father Verses Sons:
When the global pandemic forced his ninety-six-year-old father into isolation, filmmaker Ari Gold became concerned that loneliness would kill his father’s spirits. As a prolific novelist who began writing in his twenties, Herbert Gold’s incredible oeuvre included twenty-four novels, five collections of stories and essays, and eight nonfiction books. So, Ari mailed his father a poem, asking for one in return. Later, Ari’s twin brother, Ethan, also got into the game. Thus was launched a lifesaving literary correspondence, and a testament to the bonds of family.
The resulting poems are playful, honest, funny, and moving. Secrets are invoked alongside personal—and often painful—history. Ari and Ethan’s mother, Herbert Gold’s second wife, died in a helicopter crash alongside the famous rock promoter and impresario Bill Graham in 1991. Her ghost roams through the poems and the wonderful archival photos included in full color throughout.
In Father Verses Sons, a lushly illustrated “correspondence in poems,” ranges across the life, family, and death of a remarkable father. The father and his sons write tenderly of their hunger for connection, about the woman that all three men have lost (a mother, a wife), and about the passion that all three seek. Ultimately, these poems tell a singular story of men bumbling their way towards love.
Herb Gold (March 1924-November 2023) literary icon and compatriot of the Beat Generation, published more than thirty books, including the bestseller Fathers. He won the Sherwood Anderson Award for Fiction, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal, and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award.
Ari Gold is a filmmaker and winner of the Student Oscar. His films have been selected at Sundance four times, and his upcoming movies Helicopter and Brother Verses Brother, companions to this book.
Ethan Gold is a songwriter, performer, and composer residing in Los Angeles and Berlin. He is releasing a trilogy of albums about the modern world, Earth City.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2264504-0
