Gould, Joan 1927–

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Gould, Joan 1927–

PERSONAL: Born February 27, 1927, in New York, NY; daughter of Edward J. (a lawyer) and Helene Gould; married Martin L. Kleinbard, June 27, 1950 (deceased); children: Edward, Kathy Kleinbard Heinzelman, David. Education: Bryn Mawr College, B.A., 1947.

ADDRESSES: E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

Otherborn (juvenile novel), Coward (New York, NY), 1980.

Spirals: A Woman's Journey through Family Life, Penguin (New York, NY), 1989.

Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairytales Reveal about the Transformations in a Woman's Life, Random House (New York, NY), 2005.

Author of "Hers," a column in New York Times, 1980. Contributor to magazines, including Esquire, Life, Sports Illustrated, and McCall's, and newspapers. Contributor to Spain: The Best Travel Writing from the New York Times, edited by Katharine Lee Bates, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Joan Gould is an American author whose works include a juvenile novel, as well as two nonfiction works dealing with passages in women's lives. Her 1989 Spirals: A Woman's Journey through Family Life, a collection of articles first published in the New York Times, is a memoir of the author's life as "daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law, widow, and grandmother," as Gould writes on her Web site. Reviewing that work in the New York Times Book Review, Bob Greene called Spirals a "strange book," but also remarked "it's good; it's very good." For Greene, Spirals was "a grown-up's book about how a specific family exists in the real world. The fact that it isn't sugar-coated is what makes it special."

Gould further explores the different roles she and many other women play throughout their lives in her 2005 nonfiction work, Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairytales Reveal about the Transformations in a Woman's Life. In this work, Gould posits three stages in a woman's life: maiden, matron, and then crone. Each such section of life is explored via the content of fairy tales, movies, myths, and novels. A critic for Kirkus Reviews felt that Gould's approach is a "nontraditional and challenging vision of how female lore [is] passed down from generation to generation." A Publishers Weekly contributor praised the same book for its "smooth prose and snappy fairy tale summaries" that "should have broad appeal." Similarly, Library Journal reviewer Suzanne M. Stauffer wrote, "This book will be popular with those who share Gould's belief that biology is destiny."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Gould, Joan, Spirals: A Woman's Journey through Family Life, Penguin (New York, NY), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2005, Carol Haggas, review of Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairytales Reveal about the Transformations in a Woman's Life, p. 922.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2004, review of Spinning Straw into Gold, p. 1181.

Library Journal, February 1, 2005, Suzanne M. Stauffer, review of Spinning Straw into Gold, p. 105.

New York Times Book Review, July 17, 1988, Bob Greene, "Love in Spite of Us," review of Spirals: A Woman's Journey through Family Life.

Publishers Weekly, December 20, 2004, review of Spinning Straw into Gold, p. 47.